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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cliap.....„„_, Copyright No. 



Shelt._.______ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 





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~B94I 




HALF-HOUR STUDIES 
AT THE CROSS 






BY J.%. GARRISON, A. M. 

Editor 

Christian- Ev angelist , and New Christian Quarter^ 

Author of 

^^ Heavenward Way,'' ''Alone With God,'' Etc. 



*'Be it far from me to glory, save in the Cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.''— PawL 




St. Louis: 
CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

1895. 



""^ Vf^^ •'*■ c..' v'-^ ■■:•' ■ . « ^ fc-D 



v^ 






2078 



Copyrighted, 1895, by 
Christian Publishing Company, 



Thb Library 

OB CONGRBSS 



TO ALL WHO HAVE FOUND PEACE AND PARDON 

Ht tbe Cro60 of Qbviet 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME, WRITTEN IN HIS NAME, 
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



IN the churches of the Current Reforma- 
tion the Lord's Supper is given a cen- 
tral place in the Lord's day worship. Rep- 
resenting, as it does, the death of Christ 
for the sins of the world, — a fundamental 
fact in the Christian faith, — it is altogether 
proper that it should have this prominence 
in the public worship of Christ's disciples. 
The testimony of the Acts of Apostles, 
together with the corroborative evidence 
of contemporary profane history, leaves 
little room for doubt that the church of 
the first century observed this memorial 
institution every first day of the week, and 
that such observance was a chief reason 
for the Lord's day assembly. Its proper 
observance may be made a great stimulus 
to piety and to personal consecration to 
Christ's service. But, in the absence of 
any preparation of mind or heart for its 
observance, and without the presence, 
often, of anyone who has given special 
(5) 



6 preface^ 

thought to the institution and its deep 
spiritual significance, it may easily become 
the merest formality, and utterly fail to 
accomplish the purpose for which it was 
instituted. To offer some assistance in 
the way of preventing such degeneration 
of a divine ordinance is the purpose of 
this series of brief studies at the cross. 
The author has often been impressed with 
the many-sidedness of the ordinance — the 
different phases of truth illustrated and 
enforced by it — and in this series of de- 
votional studies he has aimed to present 
some reflectrons which have been awak- 
ened in his own mind, and gome lessons 
which have been impressed on him by the 
observance of this sacred ordinance. If 
these shall serve to promote a deeper rev- 
erence in the house of God, and a more 
worthy, because more thoughtful, partici- 
pation of the Lord's Supper, the author's 
purpose in the publication of this little 
volume will have been accomplished. 

J. H. G. 

Rose Hill, St. Louis, \ 
Oct, 1, 1895. J 



CONTENTS. 



PREFAC 
I. 


IE 

Submission ... 


5 
9 


II. 


Loyalty to Truth . 


15 


III. 


The Duty of Forgiveness . 


21 


IV. 


Forsaken of God 


27 


V. 


A Finished Work 


33 


VI. 


The Supper Instituted . 


39 


VII. 


For the Remission of Sins . 


45 


VIII. 


Christ Suffered to Bring Us 






TO God 


50 


IX. 


The New Covenant in Christ's 






Blood . . . , 


57 


X. 


A Memorial Institution 


62 


XI. 


Eating and Drinking Un- 






worthily 


67 


XII. 


Self -Examination . 


73 


XIII. 


A Memory and a Hope 


79 


XIV. 


The Sinless Suffering for the 






Guilty .... 


85 


XV. 


The Fellowship of Christ's 






Suffering 


91 


XVI. 


The New Commandment; or, 
The Measure of Christian 






Love 


97 



Contents* 



XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 
XXXII. 

XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 



Losing and Saving Life . 105 
The Baptism of Suffering . 112 
The Lone Sufferer . . 119 
Blessedness of Bearing Re- 
proaches for Christ . . 126 
The Mind of Christ . . 133 
Christ the Soul ' s Food . . 140 
Life Through Death . . 146 
Imitators of God . . . 153 
Mutual Burden- Bearing . 159 
The Good Shepherd . .166 
Eeconciled and Saved . 173 
Glorying in the Cross . . 181 
The Supreme Test of Disciple - 

SHIP . . . . 187 
Union of the Divine and the 

Human .... 194 
Christ the Father's Magnet 201 
The Communion of Saints . 209 
Living Unto God . . . 216 
Expediency of Christ's De- 
parture .... 224 
From Wealth to Poverty . 232 
Christ ' s Poverty Our Wealth 240 
A Sympathetic High Priest 246 
Known by His Wounds . 252 
Reasonable Service . .259 
Triumphant Through the Lamb 267 



HALF-HOUR STUDIES AT THE 
CROSS. 



I. 

SUBMISSION. 

If thou be willing, remove this cup from me: never- 
theless, not my will, but thine, be done. — Luke22'A2. 

WE are here merging into the dark 
shadows of the cross. Its chill 
penumbra has already fallen on the heart 
of the World's Redeemer. Gethsemane 
is the prelude to Calvary. It is the cross 
anticipated, realized, felt, with all its 
weight of shame and bitter agony. The 
scene is well calculated to fill our souls 
with deep awe and sympathetic sorrow. 
It is night, and the full moon sheds its 
silvery light down from a Syrian sky. 
Stillness, characteristic of Oriental cities 
at night, has fallen upon Jerusalem. The 
olive trees wave their solemn branches 
in the passing breeze, and through them 
(9) 



10 1balts=1bour Studies at tbe Croas^ 

the chequered moonlight falls upon the 
smooth sward. Yonder, where the shad- 
ows of the olive trees are deepest, is the 
figure of the lone Sufferer — the Man of 
Sorrows. A stone's throw away, but 
within hearing distance in the stillness 
of the night, are three of His most 
trusted disciples — Peter, James and 
John. They see through the shadows, by 
the aid of the straggling moon-beams, 
their Master, now kneeling with uplifted 
face, now prostrate upon the ground, and 
they hear the broken utterances of His 
prayer, repeated again and again: ''If 
thou wilt remove this cup from me, O my 
Father, well; nevertheless, not my will, 
but thine, be done! " We shall never 
know, perhaps, all the bitter ingredients 
that entered into that cup of sorrow, 
which His agonizing spirit asked to be re- 
moved, if possible. It were absurd, how- 
ever, to suppose that it was the mere 
dread of physical pain and agony that 
filled His soul with unutterable sorrow, 
and caused the bloody sweat-drops to fall 
from His face. '' It was the burden and 



1balt^1bour StuDtes at tbe Croea. ii 

the mystery of the world's sin which lay 
heavy on His heart; it was the tasting, in 
the divine humanity of a sinless life, the 
bitter cup which sin had poisoned; it was 
the bowing of the Godhead to endure a 
stroke to which man's apostasy had lent 
such frightful possibilities." Only this 
can account for that depth of emotion 
which He was unwilling that even His 
closest disciples should witness, save at a 
distance. Hence, when the horror of 
great darkness fell upon His soul, He tore 
Himself away, reluctantly (so the Greek 
word implies), from His disciples, that He 
might suffer and pray alone. His prayer 
was heard, and strength was granted for 
the ordeal that was to follow. How 
bravely, calmly and heroically He bore 
Himself, before the Sanhedrim, before 
the Judgment Seat of Pilate, and on the 
Cross! "Socrates died like a philos- 
opher, but Jesus Christ like a God! " 
The victory of submission to His Father's 
will, won in Gethsemane, made victory 
possible on the cross. 

In every great contest which the soul 



12 1foalts=1bout StuDiee at tbc Qvoee, 

has to wage with Wrong, there is always 
a preliminary struggle preceding that 
which the world sees and knows about; 
it is the heart's struggle with itself — the 
conflict of inner forces contending for the 
mastery. The world knows of David 
Livingstone's heroic contest with the sav- 
age tribes, the jungles and the fever of 
Africa, but it knows little or nothing of 
the struggle with self which preceded 
that outward conflict, in which he turned 
away from the alluring paths of earthly 
pleasure and worldly honor and dedicated 
his life to the work of missions. Without 
the first victory the others would have 
been impossible. The first victory was 
the merging of his own will into the will 
of God. So with all who have renounced 
the sinful pursuits and pleasures of the 
world and have consecrated themselves to 
the service of God and humanity. This 
renunciation is the result of a faith that 
perceives the eternal, the enduring, and 
recognizes its supreme value, in contrast 
with the fleeting pleasures of time and 
sense. Hence John says: ''This is the 



lb alts' 1bour StuDiea at tbe Qvose. 13 

victory that overcometh the world, even 
our faith." Faith itself — such a faith as 
merges the human will into the divine — is 
a victory, and this victory evermore pre- 
cedes the overcoming of the world. When 
Jesus could say, ''Nevertheless, not my 
will, but thine, be done," the subjugation 
of the world was assured. 

Let this lesson, then, teach us the duty 
of submission to the divine will. Let 
these sacred emblems of His broken body 
and of His shed blood, plead with us, 
trumpet-tongued, to submit our wills to 
the will of God. The cup that our Father 
giveth us to drink, shall we not drink it? 
It may be the cup of poverty, of humilia- 
tion, of persecution, of affliction, of fiery 
trials. But in all these experiences let us 
imitate our Master, and in His strength 
say: "Nevertheless, not my will, but 
thine, be done! " Whoso, by the grace of 
God, is enabled to pray this prayer of 
submission is prepared for the worst 
which this world can offer. As oft as we 
eat of this bread and drink of this cup, let 
the duty of submission to God's will be 



14 1balts:1bour StuMee at tbe Qioee. 

impressed upon our hearts. In vain do 
we sit at the Lord's table, if we leave it to 
murmur at God's providences, and at our 
hard lot in life. When life's battles 
press hard upon us, and its burdens seem 
too heavy to bear; when our path leads 
through some Grethsemane, and our soul 
is exceedingly sorrowful, then let the 
vision of the lone Sufferer in the Gar- 
den come before us, while we repeat His 
prayer, '' Not my will, but thine, be 
done!" 



II. 

LOYALTY TO TRUTH. 

To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come 
into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. — 
John 18: 37. 

THE struggle in the garden is over. 
Jesus, girded now for the final con- 
flict, has passed through the mock trial 
before Caiaphas, and stands at the bar of 
Pilate, the Roman governor. His wily 
foes, in order to prejudice his case with 
Pilate, mentioned his claim to kingship, 
as in rivalry with Caesar. This led Pilate 
to inquire of Jesus, ''Art thou a king 
then?" to which the majestic prisoner 
replied, in effect: "Yes, I am a king; but 
not of your kind of a kingdom. Mine is 
the kingdom of truth. I came into this 
world to bear witness to the truth. For 
so doing I am arraigned at your bar and 
am to be put to death. ' ' No wonder these 
words puzzled the patronizing and time- 
serving Pilate, and led him to ask, con- 
temptuously, "What is truth?'' It is 
(15) 



16 1balt:5lbour Studies at tbe Qxoee. 

easy to discern in that question of Pontius 
Pilate the same sneer which has often 
since then characterized the utterances 
of politicians when confronted by a grave 
moral issue. '' What is truth, or mor- 
ality, or conscience, to party success and 
personal aggrandizement?" is the mean- 
ing^ if not i\iQ form^ of many of the polit- 
ical subterfuges of our day. 

In this bold declaration of Jesus, He de- 
clares the purpose of His coming into the 
world. It is to "• bear witness to the 
truth." But w^hat if the very truths 
which need to be declared are so unpop- 
ular that He who dares to testify to them 
must suffer the penalty of death — even 
the death of the cross? So be it; He 
will not shrink from the task, even 
though it involve the bitter cup of death. 
In His announcement of the true condi- 
tions of blessedness, in His delineation of 
the kind of kingdom He had come to es- 
tablish, in His denunciation of the hol- 
lowness of the religious pretensions of 
the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus had come 
into deadly antagonism with the religious 



1balt:=1bour StuMea at tbe Cro60. 17 

authorities of His nation. This was inev- 
itable. He knew what would be the con- 
sequences of His course, and knowing 
this, swerved not a hair's breadth from 
the great purpose of His mission. From 
the cradle to the cross; from the carpen- 
ter's bench to the bar of Pilate, he spoke 
the truth, He lived the truth. He was the 
truth. Neither poverty, persecution, ec- 
clesiastical proscription nor Eoman power 
could turn Him from His predetermined 
path of duty. Even satanic fury beat in 
vain against that loyal, loving heart. Un- 
awed in the presence of Pilate, He de- 
clares His mission as boldly as to the 
Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well. It 
was this uncompromising loyalty to the 
truth that brought Jesus to the cross, 
that by means of it He might more ef- 
fectively declare the truth of God's love 
for the world. 

Let us pause, thoughtfully, in the pres- 
ence of these symbols of His body and 
His blood, and let them speak to our 
hearts and to our consciences of this won- 
derful phase of Christ's character. What 
2 



18 1balf:s1&out StuDie6 at tbe Cro60» 

lofty courage! What noble heroism! 
What supreme devotion to truth ! Does 
not His example appeal to us, as His fol- 
lowers, to be courageous and heroic in 
defense of the truth? Are we worthy to 
be called Christ's disciples, if from con- 
siderations of earthly gain, or from fear 
of our personal popularity, we turn aside 
from the truth as God has given us 
to see it? Suppose it involves loss of 
worldly goods, forfeiture of position, 
honor, and even life itself! Are we 
better than our Master? What severe 
condemnation does this example give to 
that miserable, cowardly, time-serving 
policy, which is conveniently silent in the 
presence of great popular evils, and 
which, under the false plea of superior 
fidelity to the Gospel, shuns to denounce 
the sins of our own age! 

Among the many lessons which this in- 
stitution may well serve to impress on 
our minds, we are sure that the duty of 
unflinching loyalty to the truth holds a 
prominent place. Nor let us forget the 
sequel. When Christ surrendered Him- 



1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cro66. 19 

self unreservedly into the hands of His 
Father, by bearing witness unto the truth 
even unto death, His Father took care of 
Him. ''Wherefore God hath highly ex- 
alted Him and given Him a name that is 
above every name." God always takes 
care of those who trust Him. They may 
be led to cry out in the fierce agony 
of breaking hearts, "- Why hast Thou for- 
saken me?" but the end will show that 
God forsakes no one who commits his 
soul to Him in well doing. 

Christ bore witness to the truth, not 
only by what He said and did, but also by 
what He was. The silent, out-raying in- 
fluence of a holy character is often more 
potent in rebuking impurity and winning 
the disobedient and gainsaying than any 
amount of teaching. Not every one can 
bear witness to the truth in powerful, 
convincing discourse, but it is within the 
power of every humble disciple of Jesus 
to testify to the power of the Gospel in a 
life that reflects the character of Jesus 
Christ. Such a life, too, often requires 
quite as much moral courage as the life 



20 1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cxobb. 

that is lived more in the public gaze. Al- 
ways and everywhere it is alike the duty 
and the privilege of every Christian in 
his own sphere of life to ''bear witness 
to the truth." 

O for that serene courage that marked 
the life of Christ, and enabled Him to al- 
ways bear witness to the truth ! Let this 
memorial feast be to us an inspiration to 
such lofty heroism. 



III. 

THE DUTY OF FORGIVENESS. 

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. 
Luke 22: 34. 

THE Garden, the Judgment Seat, and 
the Cross. These are the steps taken 
by our Lord on his way to glorification. 
We have lingered in our previous studies 
on the first two of these scenes, and come 
now to the darker shadows of the third. 
Pilate, yielding principle to policy, has 
delivered the Just and the Innocent One 
into the hands of His enemies, and they 
have done what they desired with Him. 
Along the Via Dolorosa He bore the 
heavy cross until His frame, weakened by 
fasting, mental agony, loss of sleep and 
cruel scourging, fainted beneath its bur- 
den. And this, dear Lord, for me! 

* ' Must Jesus bear the cross alone , 

And all the world go free ? 
No , there ' s a cross for every one , 

And there ' s a cross for me . ' ' 
(21) 



22 DalfssDour StuDiee at tbe Cro00» 

The cross was lifted from the prostrate 
Sufferer and laid on Simon of Cyrene, 
who bore it to the place of crucifixion. 
Happy Simon, to be honored with sharing 
this cross-bearing with the Lord of glory ! 
And yet is not this privilege open to 
every one who desires to enter into the 
''fellowship of the sufferings of Christ " 
by sharing the burden of the world's con- 
version, or by championing a true but un- 
popular reform? When the procession 
had reached the fatal spot at Golgotha, 
the cross was laid down until the sinless 
victim was nailed to it — ^^his hands to the 
cross-beam, and his feet to the upright 
piece. Then the cross was uplifted, 
while the flesh was rent and torn by 
the weight of the body, even though 
partially supported by a wooden projec- 
tion near the center of the cross, as was 
sometimes the case. It is thought that it 
was at this moment of inconceivable horror 
and agony that Jesus uttered the pathetic 
prayer for his cruel enemies: "Father, 
forgive them ; for they knoio not what 
they do.'' Where in all history is there 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbc droes. 23 

recorded a triumph to be compared with 
this? If ever there were reason and jus- 
tification for calling down the vengeance 
of God upon evil-doers, surely this oc- 
casion furnished such reason. One who 
was the incarnation of truth, purity and 
love, and who had devoted Himself, un- 
sparingly, to the welfare of men, had 
been falsely accused, maligned, mis- 
judged, persecuted and rejected, and was 
now undergoing the tortures of an ig- 
nominious death on the cross, breathes a 
prayer of forgiveness for those who were 
inflicting these cruelties upon Him! He 
had divested Himself of the glory which 
He had with the Father before the world 
was in order that He might share our bur- 
dens and sorrows, show us the true life, 
and win all men back to loving allegiance 
to God. But alas! those whom He came 
to save are putting Him to a cruel death. 
Does not this awful wickedness prove the 
failure of his mission and show that men 
are beyond the reach of redemption? 
''No," His prayer seems to say, "my 
enemies, even, are not so bad as their 



24 Ibalt^slbout StuDlea at tbe Qvobb. 

treatment of me would seem to indicate. 
They do not understand what they are do- 
ing. They neither know me nor my 
mission to this world. They are the vic- 
tims of false teaching, of prejudice and of 
ignorance. Did they but know how truly 
I love them, and how I am even willing to 
die that I may reveal to them the Father's 
love and bring them to God, they would 
feel and act very differently; but they are 
blind and cannot see; therefore forgive 
them, Father; they know not what they 
do ! " What divine magnanimity ! What 
largeness of moral vision! What noble- 
ness of character ! Compare with it our 
little spites, envies, jealousies and hard, 
unforgiving spirits, standing on punc- 
tilios, and refusing to forgive and to be 
reconciled until due acknowledgments are 
made to us ! How it reveals our essential 
littleness of spirit and narrowness of 
vision! It ought to shame us into pro- 
found humility and contrition of soul. 

No large nature is unforgiving. That 
is an unfailing mark of commonplace me- 
diocrity or littleness. A great soul pities 



1balts=1bour Studies at tbe Cro66» 25 

and forgives, where a little one hates and 
cherishes malice towards an enemy. It is 
the latter class who hold it to be impossi- 
ble to love our enemies and to pray for 
those who despitefully use us. Christ's 
spirit entering into a human soul creates 
greatness. It was the Christ in Stephen 
that enabled him, amid the falling shower 
of stones, to cry out with his expiring 
breath, "Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge!" To be incapable of exercising 
this spirit of forgiveness towards those 
who wrong us, is to give the most positive 
proof that we have not received the spirit 
of Christ and hence are none of His. 

What more valuable lesson can we 
allow these eloquent symbols of Christ's 
death to teach us, to-day, than the duty of 
forgiveness? Is not the Christ whom we 
love speaking to us to-day, through these 
emblems of His body and blood, in plead- 
ing tones, urging us not only to be recon- 
ciled to God, but with one another? Are 
there not many of us who cherish bitter- 
ness in our hearts, and have hard, unfor- 
giving spirits toward certain of our breth- 



26 1balts=1bour Studies at tbe Qxoee. 

ren whom we believe to have wronged us 
in some way? How can we, how dare we, 
partake of these emblems in such a spirit? 
Reminded, as we are, by this memorial 
feast that we have been redeemed and 
reconciled to God by the death of Christ, 
who, while we were yet enemies, died for 
us, let us bury, in the grave of forgetful- 
ness, all our grievances and alienations, 
anl love as brethren. If Christ so loved 
us, and forgave us, we ought also to 
so love and forgive one another. 



w 



IV. 
FORSAKEN OF GOD. 

Eloi, Eloi, lama, s abacthani?—ikf arfc 15: 34. 

E are nearing now the closing scenes 
of the crucifixion. From nine 
o'clock in the forenoon until three in the 
afternoon, Jesus has hung upon the cross, 
enduring the taunts and jeers of his ene- 
mies and the unutterable agony of the 
crucifixion. Toward the close of this 
period of indescribable suffering, when 
even the sun could not dispel the gather- 
ing gloom and darkness which hung over 
the doomed city and nation, the majestic 
Sufferer cried out, in words whose infinite 
pathos has touched all the intervening 
ages, ''Eloi, Eloi, lama, sabacthani?" 
— Aramaic words, meaning, "My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'* 
We shall probably never be able to 
fathom the meaning of this mysterious 
cry of a breaking heart. Perhaps we 

shall nearer approach its true meaning if 
(27) 



28 IbnlUHbom Qtn^ice at tbe Ct066» 

we bear in mind our Lord's real and per- 
fect humanity, and regard it as the cry of 
a loving, loyal, trusting spirit, whose cul- 
minating anguish is the obscuration, for 
the moment, of the Father's face. His 
cup of human suffering would not have 
been full — would have lacked the last and 
bitterest ingredient — had there not come 
over Him a darkness so dense as to hide 
the face of God. In all His previous ex- 
periences He seems to have walked in 
conscious fellowship with His Father. 
When His enemies persecuted Him, 
when many of His followers turned away 
from Him, offended at His sayings, when 
even His chosen ones forsook Him and 
fled, leaving Him alone with His enemies. 
He had the consciousness of His Father's 
presence and approval. But now, in 
this awful and supreme crisis, when He is 
bearing the iniquities of us all, and tast- 
ing death for every man, when the world's 
ingratitude is heaping upon Him insult 
and agony in return for His wonderful 
love and His life of beneficence, what 
wonder that His agonizing human nature 



Ibalt^lbour StuDiee at tbe Cro66. 29 

cried out, in the words of the psalmist: 
"My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me? " It is the cry of a soul con- 
scious of its rectitude, of its righteous 
purposes, and of the justness of its 
claim on God's sympathy and protection. 
It implies that the Suffering One feels 
that He is suffering according to God's 
will, and for the accomplishment of 
God's purposes. 

Have there not been experiences in 
many of our lives which help us to under- 
stand this pathetic cry of our expiring 
Lord? We have been called to pass un- 
der shadows so deep that they seemed to 
shut the light of heaven out of our lives. 
And this experience has come to us when 
we have been trying, in human weakness, 
but in sincerity of purpose, to walk in the 
path of duty. We cannot connect the 
overwhelming darkness which has eclipsed 
the heavens, and even the very face of 
God, with any conscious departure from 
the way of righteousness and truth. We 
call upon God, and He seems to hear us 
not. The wicked flourish, and we, trying 



30 Ibalts^Dour Stu&ieg at tbe Qxoee. 

to do God's will, are left to languish and 
moan out our lamentations in darkness. 
In such moments have we not felt that 
the words of the psalmist, uttered by our 
Lord in a higher and deeper sense, would 
fitly express our own feelings? It does 
seem to us, for the time, that God has for- 
saken us. It matters not that faith, and 
even reason, on reflection, would assure 
us that God cannot forsake those who are 
doing His will. The cry is the utterance 
of the soul's pent-up anguish, and not 
faith's calm decision or reason's cool 
logic. 

If it be asked why these experiences of 
anguish and sorrow come to the Christian, 
even as unto others, and sometimes more 
than to others, the full answer must be 
waited for until the light of eternity 
shall shine upon all our dark problems. 
Meantime it is enough to know, and to be 
able to say, ''Even so, Father; for so it 
seemeth good in Thy sight." And yet, 
we are not left without light on the gen- 
eral problem of human suffering. The 
Scriptures clearly teach that it has a di- 



1balt==1bout StuDiee at tbe Cro66. 3i 

vine mission in the perfection of human 
character. Even Jesus Christ Himself, 
the sinless One, was ^'made perfect 
through suffering." No doubt that por- 
tion of His suffering which we have been 
contemplating in this study — the infinite 
anguish which wrung from his soul that 
mysterious cry — had its subjective relation 
to Christ Himself, as well as its objective 
or vicarious relation to the needs of the 
world. He is in prof ounder and tenderer 
sympathy with the keenest forms of 
human sorrow by reason of His own 
bitter experience on the cross. If, at 
times, in the poignancy of our grief, we 
are led to feel that God has forsaken us, 
we remember that ''we have not a High 
Priest that cannot be touched with the 
feeling of our infirmities, but one that 
hath been in all points tempted like as 
we are, yet without sin." 

Does not this incident in the suffering 
of Christ teach us the important truth 
that no matter what dire extremity may 
come upon any child of God, God never 
forsakes any of His children? Had He 



32 1balts:lbout Studies at tbe Cvobb. 

indeed forsaken His well-beloved Son, 
save in the sense of permitting Him to 
fill out the measure of suffering for the 
world's redemption? On the contrary, 
for that very humiliation and suffering, 
endured for others, ''God highly exalted 
Him and gave unto Him the name which 
is above every name." It was the hu- 
miliation which exalted Him. It is 
through the valley of humiliation that 
we, too, must pass to the mountain of 
God's exaltation. In our deepest sor- 
row, then, God has not forsaken us, but 
is dealing with us as with sons, preparing 
us for future exaltation. O that these 
symbols of Christ's humiliation and suf- 
fering may remind us anew that God is 
never more with us than when we are 
bearing the cross, and passing through 
the shadows, and that, like our Lord, we 
must be made perfect through suffering. 



A FINISHED WORK. 

It is finished.— Jo /in 19: 30. 

THIS was perhaps the last word uttered 
by Christ on the cross. Just pre- 
vious to its utterance He had commended 
His spirit into the hands of His ^'Father," 
coming back to that trustful word again, 
after the strange, sad cry, which was the 
theme of our last study. Had there come 
to His dying vision a glimpse of the 
Father's face, shining through the thick 
darkness, that brought out those tender, 
trustful words, " Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit?" Then came the 
triumphant cry, '*It is finished! " — in the 
Greek only one word — Tetelestail Fin- 
ished ! Victorious word ! ' ' Finished was 
His holy life; with His life His struggle; 
with His struggle His work; with His 
work the redemption; with the redemp- 
tion, the foundation of the new world." 

Momentous event in the world's history, 
3 (33) 



34 1balt^1bout StuOie6 at tbe Croes* 

is attested by quaking earth, rending veil, 
splitting rocks, and opening tombs. No 
wonder the centurion, beholding these 
amazing scenes attending the dying 
Christ, exclaimed, ''Surely this was a 
Son of God! " Since that day millions 
of the most intelligent men and women 
in the world, with a better knowledge of 
God and of Christ than was possessed 
by the Roman officer, have exclaimed, 
''Surely this was the Son of the living 
God!" 

Finished, now, are His su:fferings. His 
sorrows and His indignities. No more 
shall He endure pangs of hunger, nor 
pains of weariness. Gethsemane's shad- 
ows and Calvary's cross and agony are 
forever past. The bitter cup of death, 
from which His human nature shrank, 
has been drunk to its dregs. Ended, too, 
are His days of poverty and toil, and His 
life of lowly humiliation. His earthly 
course is completed, and the work which 
He came to accomplish is finished. 
Potentially, the world has been revolu- 
tionized by that death. "It expelled 



1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Croes. 35 

cruelty; it curbed passion; it branded 
suicide; it punished and repressed an 
execrable infanticide ; it drove the shame- 
less impurities of heathendom into a con- 
genial darkness. ... It rescued the 
gladiator; it freed the slave ; it protected 
the captive; it nursed the sick; it shel- 
tered the orphifin ; it elevated the woman ; 
it shrouded as with a halo of sacred inno- 
cence the tender years of the child. It 
changed pity from a vice into a virtue. 
It elevated poverty from a curse into a 
beatitude. It ennobled labor from a vul- 
garity into a dignity and a duty. It sanc- 
tified marriage from little more than a 
burdensome convention into little less 
than a blessed sacrament. It revealed 
for the first time the angelic beauty of a 
purity of which men had despaired, and 
of a meekness at which they had utterly 
scoffed. It created the very conception 
of charity, and broadened the limits of 
its obligation from the narrow circle of a 
neighborhood to the widest horizons of 
the race." * 



* Farrar's Life of Christ. 



36 lbalt^1bout Stu&ies at tbe Croee. 

But it did all this and more, because it 
revealed the infinite love of the Father, 
the awful nature of sin, and opened the 
way for man's reconciliation with God. 
Men's relations to God being changed, 
their relations with each other are neces- 
sarily changed. We cannot love God and 
hate our brother. Christ's death was 
such an unveiling of the heart of God 
that His cross has become the symbol of 
His conquering power. Other great ones 
of earth conquered men by force; but 
Jesus Christ conquers by love, and the 
whole world is flocking to His standard. 
Other conquerors seek to slay their ene- 
mies, but this mighty Conqueror died for 
His enemies that He might save them 
from an everlasting death ! Other kings 
and rulers govern men with a rod of 
power, and, dying, transfer their king- 
doms to other men, but this King died 
that He might establish His kingdom and 
rule over His subjects with a scepter of 
love from age to age. Earthly monarchs 
put on their robes of royalty and sur- 
round themselves with pomp and splen- 



1balt:=1bour StuDiee at tbe Croee. 37 

dor to awe their subjects into allegiance; 
but Christ divested Himself of the divine 
glory and took the form of a servant, 
ministered to others and died upon the 
cross, to draw all men unto Him. 

Such was the nature of that glorious 
work of which Christ said, with his last 
breath, " It is finished." No marvel that 
with a vision of its magnificent results 
rising before Him, He ''endured the 
cross, despising the shame." Let this 
memorial of Christ's death teach us, like 
Paul, to glory in the cross, and to bear it 
high, as the world's only hope. In this 
sign we conquer. Let it teach us the 
supremacy and omnipotence of suffering 
Love. There is no power so mighty, and 
none other adequate for the redemption 
of a lost world. Christ's enemies thought 
they had defeated His plans and destroyed 
His work. Even His disciples feared that 
with the crucifixion all their fond hopes 
had been defeated. But Christ Himself, 
with a true insight into the meaning of 
His death, shouted, "It is finished!" 
And each passing century attests with 



38 1balti=1bour StuDie^ at tbe Qvoes. 

cumulative force the magnitude of the 
work therein accomplished. Happy he, 
who, at life's close, has so wrought, 
under the inspiration of Christ's life and 
death, and has so fulfilled the mission 
which God has given him, that he can 
exclaim, ' ' It is finished ! ' ' 



VI. 
THE SUPPER INSTITUTED. 

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blsssed, 
and brake it, and he gave to the disciples, and said, Take, 
eat; this is my body. And he took a cup, and gave thanks, 
and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my 
blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remis- 
sion of sins.— Ma*^. 26: 26-28. 

THE scene is now in the upper chamber 
in Jerusalem. The time is the 
evening of the betrayal. The occasion is 
the paschal supper. Jesus and his twelve 
apostles are reclining at the table, on 
which are the unleavened bread, the bit- 
ter herbs, the paschal lamb, and the fruit 
of the vine. The meal was probably 
eaten in the usual manner. When this 
observance had ended, and while they yet 
tarried at the table, " Jesus took bread, 
and when He had given thanks. He brake 
it and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body 
which is broken for you; this do in re- 
membrance of me.' After the same 

manner, also, he took the cup, when he 

(39) 



40 1baltf1bout StuDies at tbe Qtoee. 

had supped, saying, ' This cup is the New 
Covenant in my blood, this do ye, as oft 
as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.' " 

In these simple words and acts was the 
Lord's Supper instituted — an ordinance 
which from that hour until the present 
has never ceased to be observed by those 
who love and revere the name of Christ. 
It has seemed to us better to study the 
tragic scenes of our Lord's suffering and 
death, first, that we might the better un- 
derstand the significance and importance 
of this institution. Hence we return 
now from the awful tragedy of the cru- 
cifixion, to the quiet upper chamber on 
that fateful evening of His betrayal. We 
are here at the beginning of this memo- 
rial feast, the very place to ponder over 
its deep meaning and use. We call at- 
tention to a few facts in this study, pre- 
paratory to others which are to follow: 

1. It is a striking fact, whose signifi- 
cance will iiot escape the minds of 
thoughtful students, that this memorial 
feast was instituted and ordained by our 
Lord to be observed in the future, while 



lbalts=1bour StuDiee at tbe Grose. 41 

He was yet living^ and prior even to His 
betrayal. This not only shows that His 
crucifixion was no unexpected termina- 
tion of his earthly life, but what is even 
more suggestive of His divine wisdom, it 
clearly indicates that He knew the mean- 
ing of His death and its influence on the 
world. It is certainly a remarkable fact 
that one about to suffer public execution 
in the most shameful and ignominious 
manner known to men, should deliberate- 
ly plan to have the memory of that death 
perpetuated among men through all time ! 
This can mean nothing less than that He 
knew not only His own innocence, but the 
purpose for which He was to die, and 
that His death would ''draw all men" 
unto Him; that the cross would be trans- 
formed from an instrument of shame into 
a symbol of honor and power. In the 
very hour of what men regarded as de- 
feat, the eye of Jesus saw his rising glory 
and triumphant victory. ''Surely this 
was the Son of God!" 

2. Note the simplicity of the emblems 
chosen to perpetuate the memory of His 



42 DaIts=1bour Studies at tbe Cro66* 

death. He did not select something rare 
and costly to symbolize His broken body 
and shed blood, but the simple elements 
so common, so easy to be procured, and 
yet so appropriate — a plain loaf of bread 
and the pure juice of the grape! ''This 
bread," He says, '* is (symbolizes) my 
body, and this fruit of the vine is my 
blood, shed for the remission of sins." 
This is in perfect harmony with the scrip- 
tural style. The attempt to make the 
passage teach that the bread and wine be- 
come the actual flesh and blood of Christ, 
as taught by the Eomish Church, is no 
less subversive of its spiritual meaning 
than it is revolting to reason. The very 
elements in common use for the suste- 
nance of the body are taken to symbolize 
the soul's nourishment. As the grain is 
crushed before it becomes bread and the 
grape is pressed before it yields its juice, 
so must the body of the Son of God be 
broken and His blood poured out before 
He could become the life of the world. 
''Except the corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die it abideth alone, but if it 



1balt^1bour StuDtes at tbe Croee. 43 

die it bringeth forth much fruit." This 
is the principle Christ taught while living, 
and illustrated in His death. 

3. Most vital of all to be remembered 
in connection with this sweet and sacred 
memorial feast is the vicariousness of 
Christ's death. ''This is my body brolceu 
for you. This is my blood shed for the 
remission of (your) sins." He did not 
die for His own sins, for ''He did no 
sin," but " the chastisement of our peace 
was laid upon Him, and by His stripes 
are we healed." On Him was laid " the 
iniquity of us all." "He suffered, the 
just for the unjust, that He might bring 
us to God." "All we like sheep had 
gone astray," and the Good Shepherd 
"laid down His life for the sheep" that 
He might gather us into the loving fold. 
Our consciences were burdened with guilt, 
and He died that we might obtain remis- 
sion of sins. Not as a martyr merely did 
Christ die. He had power to lay down 
His life and to take it up again, and he 
voluntarily laid it down for the life of the 
world. Blessed be His glorious name 



44 Ibalfsslbour StuDiee at tbe Cro00» 

forever! No wonder His praises are 
sung round the world, and His dominion 
is an everlasting dominion ! 

4. May 1 partake of the rich spiritual 
banquet prepared in Christ's death? 
That is the great spiritual fact set forth 
in the eating of this bread and drinking 
of this cup. The act of participation of 
the emblems signifies our spiritual enjoy- 
ment of Christ's life. Does the symbol 
find its fulfillment in our lives? Do we 
really and truly and consciously live in 
Christ and by Christ, so that He is the 
strength and joy of our lives? O what 
joy, what gratitude, what assurance, what 
warm and tender love should fill our 
hearts as we gather about this table of 
the Lord and eat and drink in His king- 
dom! 



VII. 
FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. 

This is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many 
unto remission of sins.— Ma*^. 26: 28. 

THIS phrase, " Unto remission of sins," 
as we have it in the Revised Version, 
expresses the purpose for which Christ's 
blood was shed — ^the end toward which 
His death looked. The fact which under- 
lies this statement — not here argued but 
taken for granted — is the universal sin- 
fulness of the race. It is also assumed 
that there must be remission of sins in 
order to man's happiness, and to the real- 
ization of the destiny for which he was 
created. Nor will either of these assump- 
tions be called in question by any compe- 
tent person who has studied the problem 
of sin and human guilt. Our apprehen- 
sion of the meaning of these words, and 
of the importance of Christ's death, will 
depend very largely upon our conception 

of sin — its heinous character and its 
(45) 



46 1balt:st)our Stu&ies at tbe Qt06B. 

awful consequences. Sin is the dark 
background which alone gives significance 
and value to the cross. 

What is sin? It is the transgression of, 
and nonconformity to, the will of God. 
It is putting God and His law at defiance. 
It is exchanging the higher for the lower 
motive. It is a state of disharmony with 
God and with man's own moral nature. 
It is therefore the way to self-destruction. 
Its sad consequences are alienation from 
God, self-condemnation, obscuration of 
the moral vision, falling under the power 
of evil habit. Its end is death. 

The race lay under the power and guilt 
of sin. It was the mission of Jesus Christ 
to this world to deliver men from the 
thralldom and the penalty of sin. In 
God's infinite wisdom and preordained 
plan, this was to be accomplished by 
means of Christ's death. 

This is not the place to speculate on 
the philosophic relation of Christ's death 
to the remission of sins. Let it suffice 
our present purpose that Christ died that 
men, under the condemnation of God's 



1balt=:1bout StuDiee at tbe Croee. 47 

righteous law, might have remission of 
sins. That this is the purpose of His 
death Christ affirms in the words above 
quoted. His blood was shed for the 
remission of the sins of the many. 

In what light are we to understand the 
words, ''Remission of sins?" In the 
light, we suppose, of man's needs and 
God's purpose. Remission of sins im- 
plies at least two things of infinite mo- 
ment to the sinner: (1) His deliverance 
from the love and bondage of sin; and, 
(2) his release from its guilt and penalty. 
Both these results, or classes of results, 
are accomplished through faith in Christ 
as the Son of God— such a living, per- 
sonal, vitalizing faith as leads its pos- 
sessor to an open confession of, and sur- 
render to, the Lord Jesus. 

Nor is it difficult to see'why the benefits 
of Christ's death are conditioned on faith 
in Him as the Son of God. If He be the 
Son of God, then His death, for man's 
sake, is an amazing disclosure of God's 
love for sinful men, and of His willing- 
ness to save them. This ''ffoodness of 



48 lbalfss1bour StuDiea at tbe Qvoee. 

God," accepted by faith, leads to repent- 
ance and to the public acknowledgment 
of Christ. In view of this changed heart 
and purpose, wrought by the power of 
divine love, as manifested through the 
cross, it is possible for God to be ** just 
and the justifier of him that believeth in 
Jesus." He can now extend forgiveness 
to the sinner in harmony with the princi- 
ples of His moral government. But let 
no one suppose that Christ's death brings 
remission of sins to any whom it does not 
bring to repentance. These two acts — 
the one expressing man's attitude to sin, 
the other God's attitude to the sinner — 
are bound together by an unchangeable 
law of the divine government. Thus 
Christ's apostles were commissioned, 
after the resurrection, to ''preach repent- 
ance and remission of sins in His name, 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusa- 
lem." 

In view, then, of the meaning of 
Christ's death, and its relation to the 
remission of our sins, with what a deep 
sense of gratitude, and with what fervent 



1balt^1bour StuDiea at tbe Gro06. 49 

love for Christ, ought we to come to this 
table of the Lord and partake of these 
symbols of His broken body and His shed 
blood! O the infinite debt of love and of 
service we owe to Him whose death, in 
our behalf, opened to us the gates of life ! 
Is there any sacrifice too great for us to 
make, any burden too heavy to bear for 
His sake? His parting word to His disci- 
ples was, " Go into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature." In 
what way can we better show our love for 
Him than by aiding, to the extent of our 
ability, to publish the glad tidings of 
remission of sins to the whole creation? 
May this observance of our Lord's death 
greatly quicken our zeal in extending His 
gospel to every creature ! May it open to 
us, too, vast possibilities in the way of 
personal holiness, without which no man 

shall see the Lord ! 
4 



VIII. 

CHRIST SUFFERED TO BRING US TO 
GOD. 

Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous 
for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.— 1 Peter 
3: 18. 

IN THIS passage we have the purpose of 
Christ's death stated in another form 
from that in our last study. We are not to 
understand these passages as presenting 
two distinct purposes of Christ's suffer- 
ing, but rather as presenting the same 
great purpose under different aspects. 
When it is said that Christ shed His 
blood for the remission of sins, man is 
conceived as under the condemnation of 
sin, stained by its guilt, and held a cap- 
tive by its power, and Christ's blood is 
said to procure both cleansing from its 
guilt and release from its power. When 
it is affirmed, as in the present study, that 
Christ, the righteous, suffered for the 

unrighteous, that He might bring us to 
(50) 



1balts=1bour StuDiea at tbe Croea. 5i 

God, man is conceived as a wanderer from 
God, having gone astray, like lost sheep 
in the wilderness — 

"Away on the mountains, wild and bare, 
Away from the tender Shepherd's care." 

The passage assumes what, indeed, re- 
quires no argument, namely, man's alien- 
ation and moral separation from God. 
It is characteristic of inspired writers not 
to argue what is self-evident. Man's own 
conscience tells him that, as a sinner, a 
violator of God's will, he is away from 
God. He knows, too, that he has gone 
away from God of his own free will, and 
has preferred to follow the lusts of the 
flesh rather than the voice of God, speak- 
ing through his conscience and through 
revelation and providence. It is assumed, 
too, that this is not man's normal and 
rightful relation to God; that he was 
made for God, and must be brought back 
to Him before he can find the peace and 
satisfaction for which his soul craves. Is 
not this truth corroborated by the experi- 
ence of every one who has lived long in 
the world and has tested its various 



52 1balfs!lbour Studies at tbe Gros6» 

sources of pleasure? Unlimited wealthy 
exalted position, earthly honors, and all 
that can please the eye and gratify the 
senses, can not satisfy the soul's hunger 
for God. Many others besides Solomon 
have cried out in the midst of all these 
material splendors, '* Vanity of vanities, 
all is vanity! " 

Why then did not men go to God with- 
out the coming of Christ? The world did 
not know God, nor by wisdom could it 
find Him out. It was conscious of its 
unrest and of its dissatisfaction with its 
earthly environment, but not conscious 
that in God alone could be found that 
which would meet its deepest needs. 
Christ's mission to the world was to 
reveal God to men in His true character. 
He came to ''show us the Father." He 
disclosed to men the heart of God, and 
taught His disciples to say, ''Our 
Father!" Instead of God being angry 
at the world and anxious to condemn it. 
He " so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son" to save it. He "sent 
not His Son into the world to condemn 



IbnlUlbom StuDies at tbe Groee. 53 

the world, but that the world through 
Him might be saved." To make this love 
the more manifest, and to give it the 
highest possible expression, the sinless 
Son of God submitted to death on the 
cross in our behalf, that by means of this 
voluntary suffering for the sins of others 
He might '^ bring us to God." This, 
Peter declares, was the purpose of his 
suffering. 

We need not ask whether the means 
was adapted to accomplish the end, for it 
was God's chosen means, and all the 
pages of Christian history testify to the 
efficiency of the story of Christ's death to 
win men away from sin and to turn them 
to God. Christ's suffering for our sins, 
once for all, accomplishes this end, (1) 
by removing whatever obstacles there 
may have been in the way of man's access 
to God, such as, (a) the ''bond written 
in ordinances that was against us, which 
was contrary to us" (Col. 2: 14); (b) 
the middle wall of partition between Jew 
and Gentile (Eph. 2: 14, 15), and (c) the 
necessity of vindicating God's justice in 



54 1balt=1bour StuDtes at tbe Qxoee. 

pardoning sin (Eom. 3: 25, 26); and (2) 
by enabling man to return to God through 
the open way, by (a) giving man faith in 
Christ and penitence for sin, and (6) thus 
drawing him by the power of divine love 
to accept God's offer of salvation and 
reconciliation. ^* Being therefore justified 
by faith, let us have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through 
lohom also we have had our access by faith 
into this grace wherein we stand. ^^ (Rom. 
5: 1, 2.) ''But now in Christ Jesus ye 
that once were far off are made nigh by 
the blood of Christ:' (Eph. 2: 13.) 

It is abundantly shown by these and 
kindred passages that it is by means of 
Christ's death that we are brought to 
God — to the knowledge of God, to the 
love of God, to reconciliation and 
communion with God. ''For ye were 
going astray like sheep, but are now 
returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop 
of your souls." It was not, however, 
until the Good Shepherd came in search 
of us and found us that we returned to 
the fold. It is this sentiment, expressed 



1balt^1bour StuDies at tbe Qvoes. 55 

in four lines of simple verse, that has 
made one of our most familiar hymns im- 
mortal : 

''Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
Wandering from Thy fold, O God; 
He, to rescue me from danger. 
Interposed His precious blood. ' ' 

While the Church of God stands that 
song will be sung by the lisping tongues 
of childhood, by the stalwart voices of 
redeemed manhood and w^omanhood, and 
in the tremulous tones of old age. It ap- 
peals to the heart. It expresses what we 
believe Christ did for us. He it was who 
sought us, wandering on the dark moun- 
tains of sin, and brought us to God. To 
accomplish this His pathway led through 
the shadows of Gethsemane and along 
the via dolorosa to Golgotha. But He 
found us, and with His wounded palm is 
leading the lost race back to God. 
Blessed be His glorious name forever and 
forever ! 

Dearly beloved, gathered here at the 
Lord's table, with this great truth 
pressed home on our consciousness by 



56 ibaltsslbour StuDtee at tbe Qvoee. 

these visible emblems, do we not feel 
drawn by the tenderness and might of 
His love to come yet nearer to God? 
Even as Christians we have not walked 
with God as closely as we should. This 
institution shall not accomplish for us 
what it is designed to do unless we are 
drawn by it into closer and closer fellow- 
ship with God. With this aspiration in 
our hearts let us close this study by sing- 
ing: 

**Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
Nearer to Thee; 
E'en though it be a cross 
Thatraisethme.'' 



IX. 



THE NEW COVENANT IN CHRIST'S 
BLOOD. 

This cup is the new covenant in my blood.— 1 Cor. 11: 25. 

THESE words of Christ, uttered on the 
occasion of the institution of the 
Lord's Supper, Paul declares he received 
of the Lord Jesus himself. It was at the 
meeting-point of two dispensations. In 
that upper chamber was being observed 
for the last time, properly and intelligent- 
ly, the Paschal Supper, now finding its 
fulfillment in Christ. It was important 
that His disciples should know that the 
symbols used in the new memorial feast, 
then instituted, meant something very 
different from, and far more important 
than, the elements used in the Paschal 
meal. " This cup," he said, '' is the new 
covenant in my blood." In saying this 
He reminded them that the old order of 
things was passing away and the new was 

coming; that this supper related to the 
(57) 



58 1ba(t5=1bour StuDtea at tbe Cro66. 

New and not to the Old covenant; that it 
was to be sealed and established, not by 
''the blood of bulls and goats," as was 
the old, but by his own blood. The two 
emphatic words in the sentence quoted 
above are new and my. 

This language would remind an intelli- 
gent Jew of the prophecy of Jeremiah, 
concerning the new covenant. As quoted 
in the Hebrew letter, Jeremiah said: 

Behold the days come, saith the Lord, 

That I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel 

and with the house of Judah ; 
Not according to the covenant that I made with their 

fathers 
In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth 

out of the land of Egypt, 
For they continued not in my covenant. 
And I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of 

Israel 
After those days, saith the Lord; 
I will put my laws into their mind, 
And on their heart also will I write them : 
And I will be to them a God, 
And they shall be to me a people : 
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen. 
And every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord: 
For all shall know me, 
From the least to the greatest of them. 
For I will be merciful to their iniquities. 
And their sins will I remember no more. 



1balt5:ibour Stu&iee at tbe Qvoee. 59 

This new covenant differs from the old, 
as above specified, in the following im- 
portant particulars: 

1. Its laws or principles are written 
on the heart, not on tables of stone. 
That is, those within this covenant obey 
God not from an outward force, but from 
an inward life. 

2. The relation between God and such 
a people is one of peculiar tenderness 
and intimacy. 

3. All the human parties to this cove- 
nant are said to be spiritually enlighten- 
ed. It is the condition of entering into 
covenant relation with God. 

4. Sins are forgiven once for all, under 
the new covenant. There is no annual 
remembrance made of them. The offer- 
ing which Christ made of His own blood, 
for our sins, suffices to purge them away 
forever. 

The vast superiority of this new cove- 
nant over the old may readily be seen. 
The text which constitutes our present 
study asserts another marked distinction 
quite in harmony with the foregoing con- 



60 1balt:s1bour StuDlea at tbe Qvobb. 

trast. The new covenant was sealed, or 
dedicated, not with the blood of animals, 
but with Christ's own blood. The author 
of the Hebrews lays it down as a principle 
that ''Where a testament is there must 
be of necessity the death of the testator." 
(Heb. 9: 17). This is true of a cove- 
nant between God and man, since death 
is the penalty of sin and all men are sin- 
ners. '' Sinful man can be brought into 
communion with 'the holy God only if 
provision be made for the forgiveness of 
his sin, and his restoration to holiness; 
both of which are provided for by the 
death of Christ, the Mediator of the New 
Covenant." 

This brings us once more into the pres- 
ence of the cross, with bowed heads and 
grateful hearts. How can we contemplate 
the unspeakable blessings which have 
come to us through the death of Christ, 
without feeling our heart warm with grat- 
itude and love ! As we partake of these 
emblems let us be reminded, not only of 
the benefits which we enjoy within the 
new and better covenant, but also of our 



1balts=1bout StuDtes at tbe Grose* 61 

covenant obligations. There are two par- 
ties to a covenant, and in the day of our 
espousal to Christ we pledged Him our 
heart's best love and our faithful obedi- 
ence. This was the meaning of our bap- 
tism. It signified our acceptance of 
Christ's offer of salvation, and our death 
to sin and resurrection to a new life of 
righteousness. It is most fitting that in 
the presence of these sacred emblems, 
memorials of Christ's sacrifice for us, we 
ask ourselves whether we are keeping 
covenant with God, and whether, having 
died to sin, we are living, henceforth, 
unto Him who died for us. As we look 
upon this table of the Lord, and our 
thoughts turn to Him through whose 
blood we have been cleansed, and brought 
into covenant relation with God, can we 
not each of us sing: 

*'My faith looks up to Thee, 
Thou Lamb of Calvary, 

Savior divine. 
Now hear me while I pray; 
Take all my guilt away; 
O let me from this day 

Be wholly Thine.*' 



X. 

A MEMORIAL INSTITUTION. 

This do in remembrance of me.—l Cor. 11: 24. 

ONE of the strongest desires of the 
human heart is the desire to be re- 
membered. It expresses itself in the vast 
mausoleums and towering shafts of the 
world's cemeteries, in the pyramids of 
Egypt, and in numberless ways less pre- 
tentious. The heart recoils from the 
thought of being forgotten. Especially 
do we desire to live in the memory of 
those whom we have loved and for whose 
welfare we have toiled and suffered. The 
late President Garfield, whose life was 
cut short in the midst of his usefulness 
by the hand of an assassin, said to a 
friend as he lay on his dying couch, '' Do 
you think my name will live in human 
history?" This pathetic inquiry was 
prompted by the laudable desire that his 

name should be perpetuated in the his- 

(62) 



1balfs:1bour StuDies at tbe Croea. 63 

tory of the country to which he had de- 
voted so many years of public service. 

Honorable as we allow this feeling to 
be, for it is one of the incentives to vir- 
tue and heroism, we would not contend 
that it is in all cases free from an element 
of selfishness, or self-love. But in the 
case of our Savior what selfish element 
could have entered into the desire to be 
remembered? He was on the eve of His 
ascension and glorification, w^hen He 
would be re-invested with the glory which 
He had with the Father before the world 
was. He was soon to be surrounded 
with the angelic throng and to receive 
from them the adoring homage due to 
His exalted rank and His marvelous vic- 
tory over sin and the grave. Why should 
He care to be remembered by His earthly 
disciples? 

The reasons are not far to seek. "Hav- 
ing loved His disciples. He loved them to 
the end." He was about to leave them 
in His visible presence. The very love 
He bears to them would prompt the de- 
sire to be loved in return, and hence to 



64 Dalt^lbout StuDtee at tbe Qxobb. 

be remembered. Many men, on being 
exalted to a higher station in life, seem 
to forget or ignore the friends of their 
earlier years when they were poor and 
humble. This w^as not the case with 
Christ. He holds in affectionate remem- 
brance His earthly disciples — not only 
those who knew Him in the flesh, but 
those who, having not seen Him, love 
Him nevertheless — and would be tenderly 
remembered by them. Love demands re- 
ciprocation. To remember Christ, and 
especially to remember Him in His great 
sacrifice of Himself for us, is the surest 
way to keep our hearts aflame with love 
for Him. 

Again, He desires to be remembered by 
us because our salvation demands such 
remembrance. Paul says to the Corinth- 
ians (1 Cor. 15: 1, 2), " Moreover, breth- 
ren, I declare unto you the gospel which 
I preached unto you, which also ye have 
received, and wherein ye stand; by which 
also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory 
what I preached unto you, unless ye have 
believed in vain." Paul preached the 



1balt^1bour StuDiea at tbe Qtose. 65 

very facts which this institution is de- 
signed to commemorate. We cannot ap- 
proach this table intelligently without 
being reminded of the great gospel facts, 
and through them, having the living 
Christ brought before our minds more 
vividly. Memory is the purveyor of the 
mind and heart. They are affected by 
what it supplies to them and holds before 
them for their contemplation. The gos- 
pel must not only be believed in order to 
our salvation; it must be remembered 
also, as the perpetual means of our salva- 
tion. 

Herein, then, may be seen the wisdom 
of the Lord's Supper as a memorial insti- 
tution. It is the monument of the cru- 
cified but risen Christ. He erected no 
towering shaft of brass or marble to per- 
petuate his memory among men, but or- 
dained these simple emblems whereby his 
friends and followers would remember 
Him in all future ages ''until He come." 
Since its institution many monuments 
have crumbled to earth, and the names 
of heroes and mighty men have been 






>\ 



66 1balf:=l)our Stu&tes at tbe Qtoee. 

effaced from stone by the hand of Time. 
But each returning Lord's day witnesses 
Christ's monument fresh and new, and 
His name grows more resplendent with 
the passing centuries. He trusted His 
monument to the care and keeping of 
those who loved Him, and with loving 
hands they have spread the Lord's table 
through all the intervening centuries. 

Eemember Thee, Lord? Why should 
not wo remember Thee above all earthly 
friends and benefactors? Thou hast en- 
dured the bitterness of death for our 
sakes, and by Thy stripes we are healed. 
For us Thou didst tread the wine-press of 
Thy afflictions alone. Yes, we will re- 
member Thy agony in the garden. Thy 
mock trial. Thy crown of thorns, Thy 
cruel cross, Thy wounded hands and feet 
and side. O that the memory of all 
Thou hast done and suffered for us may 
fill us with contrition for our sins, and 
lead us to a more faithful discharge of all 
our religious obligations. And when 
Thou comest in Thy Kingdom of glory, 
O Lord, remember us! 



XI. 

EATING AND DRINKING UN- 
WORTHILY. 

Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup 
of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and the 
blood of the Lord.— 1 Cor. 11: 27. 

IT is not strange that many timid, fear- 
ful souls, deeply conscious of their 
faults and imperfections, should, in the 
presence of the above statement, hesitate 
to approach the Lord's table, fearing lest 
they be found ''guilty of the body and 
blood of the Lord." But it was against 
a very different class of persons that this 
language was used. The Lord's Supper 
had been greatly abused in the Church at 
Corinth. It had been regarded as an or- 
dinary meal, and the people, some of 
them at least, ate to appease their hun- 
ger and drank to excess. In a word they 
had profaned a sacred ordinance, and had 
apparently lost sight of its deep sjDiritual 

significance. This would be the more 
(67) 



68 lbalts=1bour Studies at tbe Croee. 

easily done by the Gentile converts, be- 
cause of certain heathen feasts to which 
they were doubtless accustomed. It was 
in view of such abuses as these that the 
apostle utters the stern words of reproof 
found in this chapter. 

It would be well for us all to inquire 
whether we may not be liable to fall into 
the same condemnation through an un- 
worthy participation of the Lord's Sup- 
per. The essence of the sin in the 
Corinthian church was the failure to dis- 
cern the spiritual import of the ordi- 
nance and to observe it in the proper 
spirit and for the proper purpose. It is 
evident that this same sin may be com- 
mitted in another form. It is not prob- 
able, hardly possible, that the Lord's 
Supper could be abused in the same way 
now in any civilized land; but there are 
other forms of abuse which, in the sight 
of God, may be no less blameworthy than 
that for which the Corinthian church was 
rebuked. We mention a few of the 
abuses to which the Lord's Supper is 
subject in our own time. 



1balts=lbour StuDics at tbe Cross. 69 

1. It may be made a test of orthodoxy 
— or of right opinions. We may hedge 
it about with our denominational pecu- 
liarities and allow no brother to approach 
it who cannot pronounce our party shib- 
boleth. Those who are thus kept away 
may love Christ as well or better than we, 
and may be making many more sacrifices 
for His sake than we are making; but be- 
cause of some mistaken opinion which 
we regard them as holding, we assume 
the responsibility of debarring them from 
this memorial feast. In so doing we 
would be making it a denominational or- 
dinance, a party badge, a division-wall 
between God's people. Thus what Christ 
intended to be a means of union is made 
the cause of alienations and divisions. 
It is clear that if we undertake to decide 
who may and who may not partake of the 
Lord's Supper, many of the purest saints 
on earth would be excluded, and many 
whose hearts are not right in the sight of 
God would be admitted, for none but God 
may read the hearts of men. 

2. It may be approached with a mind 



70 1balfs=Dour Stu&tes at tbc Qvoss. 

and heart full of worldly thoughts, and 
with a spirit foreign to the Lord's table. 
Is it not often the case that we go to this 
sacred institution without any preparation 
of heart and soul for its profitable ob- 
servance? In the hurry of preparing the 
body with suitable raiment, we neglect 
too often to prepare the mind and heart, 
and go into the presence of the sacred 
emblems without a distinct effort to fix 
our thoughts on its serious import. 
Sometimes we have seen persons partake 
of the bread and wine in a thoughtless 
manner, apparently not seeming to dis- 
cern the Lord's body and blood, but only 
the material elements. No doubt many 
Christians frequently err by having their 
minds pre-occupied with business cares 
or other unspiritual matters. To partake 
of the emblems without a serious thought 
of their significance, or the obligations 
which such a privilege implies, or a single 
emotion caused by the sufferings of 
Christ in our behalf — what is that but to 
partake unworthily, and thus to become 



1balt=1bour StuDiea at tbe aro66, 7i 

" guilty of the body and blood of the 
Lord?" 

3. Again we may abuse the Lord's 
Supper, by coming to it with enmity in 
our hearts towards our brethren, and with 
an unlovely, unforgiving spirit. We fear 
this is often done. In spite of the peti- 
tion in the prayer Christ taught His dis- 
ciples to pray — '* Forgive our trespasses 
as we forgive those who trespass against 
us" — and His distinct instruction that re- 
conciliation with an offended or an 
offending brother should precede even an 
act of public worship— the offering of a 
gift at the altar — many Christians neglect 
to seek such reconciliation, and continue 
to cherish hatred and enmity in their 
hearts even when they come into the very 
shadow of the cross. This is certainly 
not partaking of the supper worthily. 
He who discerns the Lord's body and 
blood in the sacred emblems cannot par- 
take of them hating a brother for whom 
Christ died. 

There may be other forms of abuse, 
but if we keep ourselves free from those 



73 1balt:s1bour StuDtes at tbe Qtoee. 

mentioned we shall not be likely to receive 
the terrible verdict — "guilty of the body 
and blood of the Lord." A conscious- 
ness of our faults and weaknesses, so far 
from being a disqualification for coming 
to the Lord's table, is a preparation for 
so doing. But along with the conscious- 
ness of our sins, there should be unfeigned 
repentance therefor, and the sincere pur- 
pose, with God's help, to depart from all 
iniquity and to live a pure and spotless 
life. 

The worthiness, O Lord, is Thine, not 
ours. Thou art the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world for our sins — the 
innocent victim of our transgressions. 
It is among the greatest of Thy mercies 
that Thou dost permit us to come to this 
sweet memorial service, and declare our 
love for Thee and our continued purpose 
to serve Thee, by partaking of this bread 
and this cup. May we henceforth live 
more worthily because of this exalted 
privilege ! 



XII. 

SELF-EXAMINATION. 

But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the 
bread and drink of the cup.— 1 Cor. 11: 28. 

THE self-testing required by this pas- 
sage as a condition of eating of the 
bread and drinking of the cup, accepta- 
bly, is set in contrast or antithesis with 
eating and drinking unworthily without 
discerning the Lord's body and blood. 
There are two discernings necessary to 
the proper observance of the Lord's Sup- 
per: (1) The discernment of ourselves, 
the inner man, by close self-scrutiny, and 
(2) the discernment of the spiritual sig- 
nificance of the emblems, and the first is 
in order to the second. The word doki- 
mazeto^ translated examine in the King 
James Version, and lorove in the Revised 
Version, as quoted above, suggests a met- 
aphor from metal-testing. The sentence 
(73) 



74 lbalts=1bout StuDles at tbe Qxobb. 

is paraphrased in the Bible Commentary 
thus: " Let a man prove himself, sifting 
what is refuse from what is sterling, the 
carnal from the spiritual." 

It is much more natural for us to ex- 
amine other people than it is to examine 
ourselves. Even in connection with this 
sacred institution, many people are much 
more concerned about the fitness of their 
neighbors to commune, than about their 
own fitness. This is strange in view of 
the fact that we are commanded to exam- 
ine ourselves, and of the additional fact 
that we are much more capable of testing 
ourselves than we are of testing others. 
Every man knows his own innermost 
thoughts, motives and desires better than 
he knows those of others. He can look 
into his own soul, and ascertain what are 
its real feelings and purposes concerning 
Christ and the Christian life, and whether 
he- is prompted by love for the Savior to 
come to the Lord's table, or by some less 
worthy motive. He can note the tenden- 
cies of his life; whether they are Christ- 
ward or worldward, and if the latter, 



1balt^1bour StuMes at tbe Groee. 75 

whether there be true contrition and 
repentance for his past delinquencies. 
We can do this for ourselves; we cannot 
do it for others. We must judge others 
by external acts, largely, and these are 
not always a true index of the heart. 
"Man looketh on the outward appear- 
ance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." 
This is a fundamental difference in the 
human and divine methods of judgment. 
In our acknowledgment of Jesus Christ 
as our Lord and Savior, we have accepted 
God's way of judging men, and are ex- 
pected to submit our own hearts to the 
most honest and fearless self-examina- 
tion. 

In seeking for the reason of man's un- 
willingness to scrutinize his inner life, we 
will be helped by remembering the prone- 
ness of some men to hide from them- 
selves the true condition of their business 
or estate, lest it be such as to trouble 
their minds ; and the disposition of others 
not to look closely into the nature of 
their physical ailments, lest they prove 
to be of so serious a nature as to destroy 



76 lbalf:=1bour StuDies at tbe Qxoes. 

hope of recovery. No one, of course, 
would defend the wisdom of such a 
course. It is weakness and cowardice 
that prompt it. Is it not the conscious- 
ness that, deep down in our hearts, there 
are motives and desires which our own 
consciences could not approve, that 
makes us loth to tear away the thin dis 
guises which we have thrown over these 
moral weaknesses and subject them to an 
honest self-examination in the light of 
the Cross? But this is moral cowardice. 
It is worse even than that; it is treachery 
to our own souls, and unfaithfulness to 
our own highest interests. 

We are summoned, beloved, by this 
passage to a heroic task. We are asked 
to turn the eyes of our understanding in- 
ward and scan the inner shrine of our 
spirits, and prove them, test them. This 
is to be done in the presence of these em- 
blems, because only in the light of the 
Cross of Christ can we estimate properly 
the true character of sin. Looking now 
into our own hearts deeper than any out- 
ward eye has ever penetrated, what do 



1balt=1bour StuMes at tbe Qvoee. 77 

we see? Do we see a divided heart seek- 
ing to hold in some sort of reconciliation 
love for Christ and love for the world's 
sinful pleasures and indulgences? Do we 
detect a secret purpose to serve God on 
Sunday and Mammon during the other 
six days of the week? Do we discover in 
the search-light of the Cross an unwill- 
ingness to permit Christ to come into our 
heart, occupy its throne, banish from it 
everything therein that is contrary to His 
will, and rule our lives? Can we detect 
a note of insincerity in our religious pro- 
fession in which, while professing su- 
preme allegiance to the Lord Jesus 
Christ, we have made a mental reserva- 
tion that this is not to be so construed as 
to interfere seriously with our business 
methods, our social pleasures and our 
lives of selfish ease? 

O my brethren, let us at least be hon- 
est with God and with our own souls ! If 
we do not mean to be Christians in reality 
as well as in name, let us at least cease to 
make any such profession. But we are 
persuaded that this self -testing which the 



78 1balt:=1bour StuDie^ at tbe Croas* 

apostle enjoins will reveal to many a 
fixed and unshaken purpose to live for 
Christ, down beneath all foibles and 
weaknesses. With the consciousness of 
our numerous shortcomings there is also 
the consciousness that we would not ex- 
change our hope in Christ for all the 
world. These discriminate between the 
carnal desires which they are honestly 
seeking to crucify, and the longings of 
the spirit for God and His righteousness, 
and this spiritual discernment enables 
them to wage a more successful warfare 
against the evil that is within them and 
the perils that are without. May the 
result of such honest self-proving as is 
here required of us be to fill us with 
greater humility, and draw us perceptibly 
closer to Him whose death for us we do 
show forth in this holy communion 1 



XIII. 
A MEMORY AND A HOPE. 

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye 
proclaim the Lord's death till he come.— 1 Cor. 11: 26. 

THIS passage sets forth the two aspects 
of the Lord's Supper: it is a proc- 
lamation of Christ's death, recalling 
that tragic scene to our memory, and it is 
a promise of his second coming, strength- 
ening our hope in that crowning event. 
The institution, therefore, combines in 
itself memory and hope. Remembering 
the fact of Christ's death for our sins, 
how natural it is for Memory to sweep 
back across the brief span of our lives 
and recall our wanderings and God's 
mercies. For while God has graciously 
promised to remember our sins against us 
no more forever, how can we help re- 
membering them as forgiven and cleansed 
by the blood of the Lamb, as we come to 

the table of the Lord? These speaking 
(79) 



80 1balt:=1bour StuDiee at tbe Grose* 

emblems make proclamation of Christ's 
death, and we can but ask ourselves, ''For 
what did He die?" The answer comes, 
" For sins not His own — but ours." And 
then some of the most offensive of these 
sins rise before us at the call of Memory. 
We can but remember our transgres- 
sions in connection with Christ's death, 
for He died for our sins. And it is well 
to do so. It will tend to humble us, and 
make us mindful of our weakness. It 
will tend, too, to deepen our sense of 
gratitude to ''Him who loved us and 
washed us from our sins in His own 
blood." How mean and dispicable these 
sins appear in the light of the cross! 
How terrible in their nature and conse- 
quences they must have been to have ne- 
cessitated the death of the innocent Son 
of God! Having been redeemed from 
sin by such a sacrifice, what manner of 
persons ought we to be in all holy living! 
Such reflections as these awakened by 
memory, are most salutary to the soul. 
They intensify our love to Christ, and 



t)alt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Gro66. 81 

strengthen all our desires and purposes to 
live true and noble lives. 

How close Memory and Hope are linked 
together! How readily the mind turns 
from the events of the past to survey the 
future ! But the great event of the 
future that rises before our vision, as we 
come to this memorial supper, is the sec- 
ond advent of our Lord to this earth. 
How long must Christ's followers con- 
tinue to eat of this bread and drink of 
this cup? ''Till he come!" That event 
marks the limit of the use of these sym- 
bols. After that we shall not need this 
ordinance to keep fresh in our own minds 
and in the minds of the world, the fact 
of Christ's death for us and his love for 
men. He will come in the glory of His 
power. The mountains shall bow before 
Him, the little hills shall rejoice and all 
the trees of the field shall clap their 
hands for joy. ''Till He come!" The 
words indicate perfect certainty in the 
Apostle's mind that Christ is coming to 
the earth again, " in like manner " as the 
disciples "beheld him going into heav- 



82 1bnlUt>ont Studies at tbe (Iro66» 

en." This wac the faith of the Apostolic 
Church, and it is the faith of true believ- 
ers to-day. 

When wil] He come? We do not 
know. The angels do not know. Even 
Christ did not know when He was here on 
earth. It is in the hands of the Father. 
But He is coming, and it will be ''in the 
fulness of time," just as His first coming 
was. The world at large will not be ex- 
pecting it. Men will be projecting their 
business plans far into the future, and 
their minds will be full of the petty little 
honors, rewards and pleasures of the 
world. Then '' as the lightning cometh 
forth from the east and is seen even unto 
the west, so shall be the coming of the 
Son of Man." How long, O Lord, are 
Thy faithful, waiting and watching ser- 
vants to witness the dishonor and con- 
tempt heaped upon Thy church by unbe- 
lieving scoffers? The Apostle's answer 
is, '' Till He come?" How long before 
we shall see the King in His beauty? 
''Till He come!" 

Have we considered well what mighty 



Dalt^lbour StuDiee at tbe Croee* 83 

changes on this earth will follow Christ's 
second coming? He will not come the 
second time in weakness and poverty, but 
in the greatness and majesty of His divine 
glory and with a vast retinue of angels. 
The world shall know of His arrival, for 
"all nations shall be gathered before 
Him," and the great work of separation 
between the righteous and the unright- 
eous shall begin. He came as a Savior 
before. He comes the second time as 
Judge. The righteous dead will be 
raised, the righteous living changed, and 
" together with them be caught up in the 
clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and 
so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 
Thess. 4: 17). Glorious promise! How 
it cheers the heart to know that Christ is 
coming back to the scene of His strug- 
gles, temptations, sorrows, agony and 
death, as a triumphant Conqueror! Com- 
ing back to establish His throne on earth 
and to reign over it! Coming back to 
glorify His own, to heal all their sorrows 
and to dry all their tears ! Coming to put 
down all opposition and wickedness and 



84 1balt==t)our StuDie^ at tbe Qtoee. 

rebellion, and establish righteousness 
throughout the whole earth ! Coming to 
purify this old sin-cursed world and to 
" make all things new." No wonder the 
seer of Patmos, looking forward upon 
all these marvelous changes, exclaimed, 
''Come, Lord Jesus!" Let us rise from 
this memorial service to-day resolved, 
more than ever, to be ready ourselves for 
Christ's coming, and to seek to make the 
world ready. Let us determine to labor 
and pray and suffer for the world's salva- 
tion "till he come." 



XIV. 

THE SINLESS SUFFERING FOR THE 
GUILTY. 

Him who knew no sin he made to be sin in our behalf; that 
we might become the righteousness of God in him.— 
2 Cor. 5:21. 

THIS remarkable passage expresses the 
motive by which the Apostles, as 
ambassadors on behalf of Christ, urged 
men to be reconciled to God. Higher 
motive does not lie within the range 
of human conception than that God, in 
order to our reconciliation and righteous- 
ness, should permit His sinless Son to 
bear the sins of the whole world and 
suffer as if Himself were guilty. The 
man who rejects the doctrine of the vica- 
rious suffering of Christ, must reject this 
passage along with many others.* An 

* We do not use the term ''vicarious" to mean that Christ 
suffered the punishment due to our sins, so that we are 
thereby freed from such punishment, but in the sense that 
his suffering was in our behalf, that we might be made 
righteous and therefore free from the condemnation of sin. 
(85) 



86 1balt:s1bour StuOtee at tbe Qxoee. 

ethical difficulty has been raised by some 
as to the righteousness or justice of God 
in permitting the innocent to suffer for 
the guilty. But this difficulty arises out 
of the failure to recognize the voluntari- 
ness of Christ's suffering. Surely we 
cannot deny to Christ the right to go be- 
yond the requirements of justice, and to 
give such an expression of His love for 
man and of His subjection to His Father's 
will, as would result in bringing sinful 
men into a state of righteousness. Even 
parental love in human hearts does not 
stop to ask what law or justice requires it 
to do to rescue erring and imperiled chil- 
dren, but only what it can do to save the 
objects of its love. How much more 
would God " so love the world as to give 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth on him might not perish, but 
have everlasting life!" 

Whatever may be the unfathomable 
depths and unattainable heights of this 
profound and lofty theme, there are some 
truths that stand out in bold relief, in 
connection with it, which we can perceive 



1f3alt=1bour StuDies at tbe Cro06, 87 

and whose preciousness we can in some 
degree appreciate. 

1. The sinlessness of Christ, who suf- 
fered the agonies of Gethsemane and the 
cross. He knew no sin, though living in 
a sinful world, possessing a human nature, 
and feeling the waves of temptation beat 
against Him constantly. He yielded not 
to its solicitations, but preserved, unsul- 
lied, his spotless purity through all the 
trying experiences of His earthly life. 
Let the vast significance of this fact be 
pondered well by us. Wherefore this 
unique experience, this solitary exception 
to the unnumbered millions of our race 
who have lived in the world? 

2. This sinless One was a Supreme 
Sufferer. He was pre-eminently " a man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
With a soul keenly sensitive to sin and to 
all forms of suffering in those about 
Him, what must have been the pain He 
daily endured as He came in contact with 
loathsome disease, with poverty and want, 
with death and its bereavements, and with 
hypocrisy, selfishness and avarice ! But a 



88 1balt:sibout StuDiea at tbe Qvosq. 

deeper shadow came upon Him in the 
Garden, culminating in the indescribable 
darkness and anguish of Calvary. No 
such cup of sorrow was ever before or 
since pressed to human lips. It is not in 
the power of finite minds to conceive of 
all the horror and soul-agonj which 
Christ endured in that awful and myste- 
rious struggle with the powers of dark- 
ness, when he was ''made sin for us." 
It is a false theory of the divine govern- 
ment, therefore, that makes suffering a 
sign of the divine displeasure. Some of 
the greatest saints have been the greatest 
sufferers in all ages. It is often the case, 
too, that they suffer for righteousness' 
sake, and for the welfare of others. Out 
of the school of adversity have graduated 
some of the noblest characters which 
have honored the race. 

3. His suffering was in our behalf. 
This, the unthinking multitude who wit- 
nessed Christ's suffering, did not know. 
They associated His crucifixion with the 
idea of His own guilt. " We did esteem 
Him stricken, smitten of God and 



1balt5=1bout StuDiee at tbe Groae. 89 

afflicted," says Isaiah. ''But he was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was 
bruised for our iniquities; the chastise- 
ment of our peace was laid upon Him, 
and with His stripes we are healed." 
This suffering in our behalf was volun- 
tary. It was prompted by love. He 
''loved us and gave Himself for us!" 
Was ever gift like that? Did ever love 
before or since give such evidence of its 
genuineness and strength? Not that we 
loved Him, but that He loved us. This 
it is that makes His suffering vicarious, 
that He laid down His life in our behalf. 
4. The end sought in this voluntary 
suffering for us, ivas that we might become 
the righteousness of God in Christ. The 
cross, then, has a deep ethical intent. Its 
purpose was to effect our righteousness. 
That involves the transformation of our 
character. How the cross can effect this 
change we need not attempt here to ex- 
plain. We know it does it, however, as 
attested by nearly nineteen centuries of 
Christian history. The heart can explain 
the fact better than the head. It is 



90 1balts=1bour StuDies at tbe Qvose. 

divine love, evoking love in human hearts 
by its sacrifices, and through love trans- 
forming the life. What we specially de- 
sire to emphasize, however, in this place, 
is that the very end toward which Christ's 
sacrifice for us looks, is our becoming the 
righteousness of God in Him. We be- 
seech you, brethren, who come to this 
holy feast, that ye ''receive not the grace 
of God in vain," but let us " cleanse our- 
selves from all defilement of flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of 
God." If we have hitherto been content 
with our faults, and have made a truce 
with habits and aims of life which mark a 
low grade of Christian character, let the 
tender appeal which this institution 
makes for purity and righteousness, re- 
buke our low aims and our unholy com- 
promises, and stir us up to more heroic 
efforts to realize that ideal righteousness 
of character which was the end of all 
Christ's sufferings in our behalf. 



XV. 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST'S SUF- 
FERING. 

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, 
and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed 
unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resur- 
rection from the dead.— P/itL 3: 10. 

TO KNOW God, as He is revealed in 
Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, is 
life eternal. To know Christ is to know 
God, for no man cometh to the Father 
but by Him. But to know Christ fully 
we must know Him in the two aspects in 
which He has manifested Himself unto 
us, namely, in His humiliation and in His 
exaltation. The above is the historic or- 
der in which He has manifested Himself 
to men, but the order observed in the 
text is perhaps the order in which we 
know Him. That is to say, we bow to 
His authority as King, in His exalted res- 
urrection state, and know something of 
(91) 



92 1balt=1bour StuMea at tbe Qxoee. 

the power of His resurrection, before we 
enter fully into the fellowship of His suf- 
ferings, which implies a maturer develop- 
ment of spiritual life. The first is ''the 
quickening virtue of His resurrection," 
the second is ''assimilation to Him by 
partaking of His sufferings." 

It is safe to assume that we who have 
come to this table of the Lord, as com- 
municants, know something of the quick- 
ening power of Christ's resurrection from 
the dead. It is through the belief of that 
fact, and all that it implies, that life has 
taken on new meaning to us, and our 
•supreme obligations to Christ have been 
realized in some measure by us. We 
have looked through the open sepulcher 
and caught a glimpse of the immortal 
radiance reflected from the life beyond. 
This vision of the eternal world has 
brought new hope and fresh inspiration 
to our lives. This new life and new joy 
which have come into our souls we feel 
sure have come from the risen Christ, 
who died for our sins and rose again for 
our justification. Hence, to some extent 



1balts=1bour StuDiea at tbe Cross- 9^3 

at least, we know " the power of His res- 
urrection" — a power to remove the sting 
of death and fortify us against all the ills 
of this present life. That we shall yet 
know Christ in ''the power of His resur- 
rection," in a much larger sense, is un- 
doubtedly true ; but we have already had 
a foretaste of that power as an earnest of 
the yet richer and fuller revelation which 
is to come. 

How much have we learned of ''the 
fellowship of Christ's sufferings?" That 
we realize that it is through the suffer- 
ing of Christ that we have been brought 
into a state of reconciliation with God, is 
no doubt true. But this we may do with- 
out knowing what it is to "suffer with 
Christ," and to share with Him the bur- 
den He bore for the world's redemption. 
Nevertheless we do not fully know Christ 
until we do enter into the fellowship of 
His sufferings. Since to know God in 
Christ is life eternal, it follows that there 
is a fullness of life denied to all those 
who have not entered into the fellowship 
of His sufferings. We can know men 



94 lbalts=1bour StuMes at tbe Croea* 

but partially in prosperity, and in posi- 
tions of honor and power. When we 
have walked with them in the valley of 
humiliation and adversity, where great 
billows of sorrow have broken over them, 
and have shared with them their burdens 
and griefs, we feel that we know them as 
never before, and are bound to them by 
ties of love and sympathy which would 
otherwise have been impossible. Nothing 
unites men so closely as suffering to- 
gether. Why should not this principle 
hold good in reference to Christ? 

What is it, then, to know the fellow- 
ship of Christ's suffering? It is certain 
that we are not to understand a mere 
theoretical or abstract knowledge of such 
sufferings, such as we might learn by 
reading or hearing about them. The 
word ''fellowship" carries with it a 
deeper meaning than this. It implies a 
partnership with Christ in His sufferings 
—■an experimental knowledge of these 
sufferings by a personal participation. 
One may inquire, in the literalistic spirit 
of Nicodemus, ''Is it possible for one 



1balt=1bour StuDiea at tbe Croee^ 95 

now to be nailed to the cross with Christ, 
and feel the pain which shook His mortal 
frame as the cruel nails pierced his hands 
and feet, and His quivering flesh was rent 
by His weight on the uplifted cross?" 
Literally, of course not; metaphorically, 
or figuratively, he can. " How can these 
things be?" He who feels in his soul, in 
some measure, the love for humanity 
which Christ felt and feels yet, and who, 
realizing to some extent, as He realized, 
the awful consequences of sin, yearns for 
the salvation of men, and to accomplish 
that end is willing to endure hardships, 
privations, obloquy and become ''of no 
reputation," that he may bring men to 
the knowledge of God, he knows the fel- 
lowship of Christ's suffering. He under- 
stands Gethsemane's awful struggle as no 
mere theologian ever can understand it. 
Every true disciple that follows in 
Christ's footsteps has his own Geth- 
semanes and Calvarys. He, too, has 
staggered under the burden of some cross 
borne for Christ, and for the world's 
redemption. Such an one knows Christ 



96 Ibalt^Dour Studies at tbe Croae* 

in a deeper and higher sense than any 
nominal disciple, who turns back from 
any losses, burdens, persecutions and 
trials, can know Him. He knows Him 
in the tenderness of His love and in the 
depth of His solicitude for the salvation 
of the lost. 

O what ties bind such disciples to their 
Lord! They, too, have tasted the cup of 
bitterness, and have shared with Christ 
in bearing the world's scorn and con- 
tempt. They are one with Him in bonds 
of everlasting sympathy and love. What 
He suffered for, they suffer for. What 
He died for, they are willing to die for, if 
need be. They do not esteem their lives 
dear, if called upon to lay them down for 
Christ's sake and the gospel's. 

This is what the Lord's Supper is say- 
ing to us to-day, beloved. It is an appeal 
to us to follow Christ in His lowly suffer- 
ings here if we would reign vfith Him 
hereafter. Are we ready to-day to know 
Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings, 
as well as in the power of His resurrec- 
tion? Let us so eat of this bread and 
drink of this cup. 



XVI. 

THE NEW COMMANDMENT; OR, THE 
MEASURE OF CHRISTIAN LOVE. 

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one 
another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another.— JoTin 13: 34. 

THE death of Christ introduced not 
only a new conception of sin, a new 
type of righteousness and a new standard 
of judgment, but it also furnishes us a 
new measure of love. To love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself was a requirement of the 
law which Christ regarded as only second 
in importance, and of the same nature as 
the commandment to love God with all 
one's mind, heart and strength. But in 
the passage above quoted Jesus seems 
to require among His disciples a new 
measure of love, even that which He was 
to exemplify in His death for them. It is 
altogether proper, therefore, that we 

associate this ordinance, commemorative 

7 (97) 



98 1balt^1bout StuDte0 at tbe Gross* 

of Christ's death, with this new com- 
mandment to love one another as He 
loved us. Not only was Christ's death a 
manifestation of His love in our behalf, 
but this observance is intended, no doubt, 
to foster brotherly love among Christ's 
disciples. When it is observed in the 
spirit in which the early disciples ob- 
served it and for the purpose for which 
it was instituted, it can hardly fail to in- 
tensify our love for Christ and for one 
another. Reduced to a matter of mere 
ceremony, and surrounded with pompous 
ritual, it fails to accomplish this end, and 
hence before the Lutheran Reformation 
its original meaning had been largely 
lost sight of . In D'Aubigne's ''History 
of the Reformation " he gives an inter- 
esting account of the readjustment of the 
Lord's Supper after the Romish mass had 
been abandoned. It occurred at Zurich, 
Switzerland. The account says: 

" On the eleventh of April, 1525, three 
pastors of Zurich presented themselves, 
with Megander and Oswald Myconius, be- 
fore the great council and petitioned for 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbe Gross. 99 

the re-establishment of the Lord's Sup- 
per. Their speech was grave ; all minds 
were solemnized; everyone felt the im- 
portance of the resolution which the 
council was called upon to take. The 
Mass, that mystery, which, for more than 
three centuries, was the soul of the relig- 
ious service of the Latin Church, behoved 
to be abolished; the corporal presence of 
Christ behoved to be declared an illusion, 
and the illusion itself to be made palpa- 
ble to the people. To resolve on this re- 
quired courage, and there were men in the 
council who shuddered at the very idea 
of it." 

After full discussion, however, the im- 
portant step was decided on, and the ob- 
servance and its result are thus described : 

"Altars had disappeared; and their 
places were supplied by single tables, on 
which stood the wine and bread of the 
Eucharist, while the attentive congrega- 
tion thronged around. There was some- 
thing solemn in the numbers 

The deacons read the passages of Scrip- 
ture which referred to the sacrament, the 



100 1E)alts=1bour StuDiea at tbe Gross. 

pastors addressed an earnest exhortation 
to the flock, urging all those who, by con- 
tinuing in sin, would defile the body of 
the Lord Jesus, to abstain from this 
sacred supper. The people knelt; the 
bread was handed around on large plat- 
ters or wooden plates, and each person 
broke a portion ; the wine was dispensed 
in wooden cups — this being thought to 
approach nearest to the first institution. 
Surprise and joy filled all hearts. This 
reformation was effected in Zurich. The 
simple celebration of the Lord's death 
seemed to have again infused into the 
Church the love of God, and of the 
brethren. The words of eTesus Christ 
were again spirit and life. While the 
different orders and different parties of 
the Church of Eome had never ceased to 
dispute with each other, the first effect of 
the gospel, on again entering the Church, 
was to establish charity among the breth- 
ren. The love of primitive ages was re- 
stored to Christendom. Enemies were 
seen renouncing old and inveterate 
hatred, and embracing each other after 



1balt==1bour StuDiee at tbe Qvoee. lOl 

having eaten together of the bread of the 
Eucharist. Zwingle, delighted at this 
touching manifestation, thanked God 
that the Lord's Supper was again per- 
forming those miracles of love which the 
sacrifice of the Mass had long ceased to 
produce." (Pages 336 and 337.) 

We quote this to show that it is not 
only the purpose but the legitimate effect 
of the Lord's Supper, properly observed, 
to kindle the flame of brotherly love in 
hearts where it had ceased to glow. The 
reason of this is not far to seek. The 
Lord's Supper is the memorial of Christ's 
death — a supreme manifestation of love 
for all men. Christ then loved not only 
us, but those whom we have felt at lib- 
erty not to love. But should we not love 
those whom Christ loved? If He gave 
Himself for His enemies, why should not 
we also love even those who have mis- 
treated us? Such must be the process of 
reasoning that must go on in a thought- 
ful mind in the presence of these sacred 
emblems. 

But it is the measure of the love re- 



102 1balt*=1bout StuDiea at tbe Croes* 

quired by this new commandment that 
constitutes its unique feature. We should 
love each other as Christ loved us. He 
loved us well enough to die for us. " We 
ought, also," says John, ''to lay down 
our lives for the brethren." That is, we 
are to hold ourselves in such an attitude 
of loving friendship to our brethren as 
that we are willing to serve them in any 
emergency, even to the extent of dying 
for them. But the laying down of our 
lives for our brethren does not necessarily 
mean that we are to die for them. This 
is rarely, if ever, now required of us. 
The principle, however, remains, and this 
principle is that all our resources of 
mind, body, and earthly position are held 
subject to the needs and necessities of the 
brethren. If they are not so held, we are 
not fulfilling the law of Christ as ex- 
pressed in His own life and in this new 
commandment. 

There can be no doubt that one of the 
prominent characteristics of the early 
Church was the love which its members 
had one for another. This bond of afEli- 



1balts=1bour StuDiea at tbe Qtoee. 103 

ation was something stronger than the 
world had ever seen before, and it mar- 
veled at it. ''Behold, how they love one 
another! " was the natural expression of 
their surprise at this new phenomenon. 
Nor is it less certain that this feature of 
Christianity in the days of its purity did 
much to commend it to the unbelieving 
world, and to convince its enemies that it 
had a power superior to that of other re- 
ligions. It was intended by the Founder 
of Christianity that this should be so. 
" By this shall all men know that ye are 
my disciples," said Jesus. Brotherly 
love, then, was the primitive badge worn 
by the early Christians which marked 
them as disciples of Christ. Its restora- 
tion in our day in all its primitive force, 
even to the breaking down of sectarian 
barriers, and the abolition of party names 
and distinctions, would do more to con- 
vert the world and usher in the millennial 
reign than the restoration of the miracle- 
working power of the early Church. 

If it be, then, the effect of the scrip- 
tural observance of this institution to 



104 Ibalt^lbour StuDles at tbe Ctoee. 

foster brotherly love, and thus restore 
unity in the Church, we have in this fact 
a strong argument for its perpetuity, and 
for its observance as often, at least, as 
every first day of the week. If at any 
time we leave this table, with an unfor- 
giving spirit, cherishing hatred or malice 
in our hearts toward any one, and es- 
pecially toward brethren, we may rest 
assured that we have missed the signifi- 
cance of this solemn feast, and that our 
observance has been purely formal and 
unscriptural. Love for Christ and love 
for His disciples are so intimately blended 
and interwoven with each other, that we 
cannot cherish the one without cherish- 
ing the other. At the Cross of Christ, 
at last, the warring factions of the Church 
will lay down their weapons of strife, and 
unfurl the white banner of peace, and 
thence move forward unitedly to the 
rescue of a perishing world. 



XVII. 
LOSING AND SAVING LIFE. 

And He said unto all, If any man would come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow 
me. For whosoever would save his life shall lo3eit;but 
whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall 
save it.— Luke 9; 23, 24. 

JESUS having elicited from His disciples 
their confession of Him as the Christ 
of God, had announced to them the fact 
of His rejection by the authorities of the 
Jewish nation, and His crucifixion and 
resurrection from the dead. The thought 
of His repudiation by the Jewish people, 
and of His humiliation by crucifixion, 
was so utterly repugnant to all the plans 
and hopes of the disciples that Peter 
even ventured to rebuke Him for what 
evidently seemed to him a rash and 
impolitic statement. It was this action of 
Peter, sympathized with, no doubt, by 

the other disciples, which brought forth 
(105) 



106 1balt=1bour Btnbiee at the Qvo36. 

the words from the Savior which are 
quoted above. He means to say to them, 
'' Not only is it true that I am to be cruci- 
fied and to lay down my life for the wel- 
fare of man, but in so doing I am only 
representing the general law of life. 
Whoever would be my disciple must 
bear his cross, not as a rare exhibition of 
faith and heroism at long intervals, but 
as a daily course of life." The principle 
which underlies this cross-bearing, as a 
condition of discipleship, is, that he who 
lays down his earthly life in the interest 
of righteousness and for the welfare of 
his fellowmen, shall save it in the higher 
and nobler sense; while he who, turning 
aside from the path of danger and of sac- 
rifice, saves the lower material life, 
thereby forfeits his life eternal. 

This sets the Cross of Christ before us 
in a new light. It is infinitely more than 
a symbol of suffering. It is the embodi- 
ment and illustration of one of the pro- 
foundest principles of human life. The 
words are incapable of being understood, 
as are many other words of Jesus, unless 



1balt=1bour StuDies at tbe Croes. 107 

we bear in mind the trivial estimate He 
puts upon mere physical life as con- 
trasted with the life of the soul. To one 
whose vision takes in the eternity of the 
soul's life, the temporary life of the 
flesh is a very small thing in comparison. 
What matters it if we are permitted to 
live to the full limit of human life, with 
every earthly desire and ambition grat- 
ified, and our lower nature pampered and 
nourished, if the higher ranges of our be- 
ing, which ally us to God, are neglected, 
starved and atrophied ? This was the 
false conception of life which Jesus saw 
in the world. He observed that men 
were living for the present and not for 
the future. He saw that they were 
anxious about the body — what it should 
eat, what it should drink, and where- 
withal it should be clothed; but that they 
had little thought of the immortal nature 
— its food and drink and its investiture. 
What the world needed, then, was a 
striking illustration of the true life which, 
repudiating all sordid aims and ambi- 
tions, and all selfish motives, should be 



108 1balt==1bour StuDiee at tbe Qvobb. 

surrendered to the loftiest ideals, scorn- 
ing danger and even death that it might 
attain unto the fullness of perfected be- 
ing. Such, at least, is one lesson taught 
us by the Cross of Christ. 

Beloved, as oft as we eat of this bread 
and drink of this cup, this high ideal of 
life should be lifted before us. We 
should recognize in these speaking sym- 
bols the expression of the great truth 
that he only lives truly who lives a life 
of self-denial, and self-crucifixion. Christ 
lives to-day in the hearts of millions of 
believers because he dared to lay down 
his life for others. Had He accepted the 
proposition of his tempter, and by the 
sacrifice of right and truth become the 
Euler of the world by a short and easy 
path, and lived a life of selfish and luxu- 
rious ease, ruling men by force, and exact- 
ing from them their service as His due. 
He would no doubt have been honored 
in that generation; but His name long 
since would have lost its potent spell, 
and He would not now be ruling over a 
vast spiritual empire. Because He emp- 



1balt^1bour StuDies at tbe Crose. 109 

tied Himself and took upon Him the form 
of a servant, and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the Cross, God 
hath highly exalted Him and given Him 
a name that is above every name. 

This principle, which is so conspicu- 
ously illustrated in the life of Christ, is 
seen manifesting itself in a less degree 
through all the pages of human history. 
The men and women who, despising the 
world's honors and selfish indulgences, 
have given themselves for the benefit of 
the race, and have sought to alleviate 
human suffering and sorrow, and to make 
the hard conditions of life more tolera- 
ble — these are they who live to-day in 
the memory and in the affections of man- 
kind. Their names are not forgotten. 
We linger lovingly over the pages of his- 
tory that record their unselfish deeds. 
We make pilgrimages to their graves, and 
stand, uncovered, over the mounds where 
their ashes sleep. Paul and Nero have 
both transmitted their names to pos- 
terity. The one lives in the affection- 
ate regard of men and is a perpetual 



110 1balts:lbour StuDies at tbe Qvobb. 

inspiration to all high and worthy Chris- 
tian effort. The other is a synonym for 
tyranny, heartless cruelty, and selfish 
luxury. One laid down his life, like his 
Master, on the altar of Christian service, 
and has found the life eternal. The 
other lived in the flesh and for the grati- 
fication of his animal nature, and lives 
only in the execration of mankind. The 
visitor to Westminster Abbey may pass 
by, unmoved, the tablets bearin,g the 
names ,,of England's great military chief- 
tains and statesmen, but he will be apt to 
pause over the marble slab inscribed 
with the name of David Livingstone, who 
laid down his life in the midst of the 
Dark Continent for the redemption of 
Africa. Evermore history is teaching us 
that the path of glory is the path of self- 
denial. This is the philosophy of the 
Cross, set over against the false philos- 
ophy of the world. 

We have not lingered in vain around 
the table of the Lord, if we carry hence 
with us, in living power, the truth which 
the Master so beautifully taught and so 



1balf=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cro66. ill 

wondrously exemplified, that the offering 
up of our lives, in acts of daily self- 
denial, for the world's betterment, is the 
true secret of gaining the life eternal; so 
that, in the future, others may take note 
of us, that we have been with Jesus, and 
have adopted His great principle of life. 
Following thus in His lowly footsteps 
here, we shall reign with Him hereafter, 
and share in His glory there as we have 
shared in His humiliation here. The life 
of the soul is fellowship with God. 
Whatever helps us to that goal of our be- 
ing, even though it be the laying down of 
our earthly lives, ought not to be counted 
loss, but gain. 



XVIII. 
THE BAPTISM OF SUFFERING. 

But I have a baptism to be baptized with : and how am I 
straitened till it be accomplished! — Luke 12: 50. 

THIS, with other kindred passages, 
shows that Jesus carried about with 
Him the shadow of the coming eclipse of 
sorrow. He was not unaware of the doom 
that awaited Him. In our last study we 
had a prediction of His crucifixion. In 
this we are to study the significance of His 
use of the term ''baptism," in connection 
with His suffering. Other words could 
have expressed the mere fact of His com- 
ing struggle and death. There must have 
been some special fitness in this term 
which led to its selection by Jesus in this 
connection. In the first place, the form 
or outward act of baptism, would fitly 

represent the overwhelming sorrow and 
(112) 



1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cross. ii3 

anguish which were to sweep over and 
submerge His soul. Those who have 
known something of the depths of human 
sorrow, and who have felt like crying out 
with the psalmist, ''All thy waves have 
gone over me," will be best enabled to 
understand the meaning of Christ's ex- 
pression. The impropriety of using such 
a word to express some trifling or ordi- 
nary trouble or affliction is obvious to all. 
It carries with it an intensity of meaning 
not applicable to the ordinary ills of life. 
But when the human spirit is over- 
whelmed with anguish and suffering, and 
all its powers are overshadowed with a 
supreme sorrow, then the word fitly de- 
scribes the experience. When we remem- 
ber the mysterious anguish which our 
Lord underwent in the garden, and the 
tragic scenes of the Cross, when on Him 
the Avorld's sin and sorrow were rolled, 
we feel the fitness and force of the term 
to describe what He experienced. 

The same reason, no doubt, underlies 
the figurative use of baptism in connec- 
tion with the Holy Spirit. Both at Pen- 



114 l)alt=1bour StuDie^ at tbe Croas* 

tecost, at the opening of the Christian 
dispensation, and at Csesarea, when the 
door of faith was opened to the Gentiles, 
the disciples are said to have been bap- 
tized in the Holy kSpirit. The fact that 
the baptism in the Spirit is not men- 
tioned elsewhere than in connection with 
these two historic occasions, and that in 
each of these there were extraordinary 
manifestations of divine power, such as 
speaking with tongues, has led many de- 
vout students of the Bible to limit the 
application of this phrase to these two 
occasions. They do not, of course, deny 
that Christians now receive tlie Holy 
Spirit, but they think they do not receive 
Him in such measure as to warrant the 
use of this strong term. This, it must be 
confessed, as a matter of fact, is too true 
of most professed Christians; whether it 
is necessarily so, and whether it is so in 
the case of all Christians since the close 
of the apostolic age, is another question. 
It is unquestionably true, however, that 
the Apostles and some others of the early 
Christians received the Holy Spirit in 



1balfs=1bour StuDie^ at tbe Cross* lis 

such measure, as that it could be said of 
them that they '' spake as the Spirit gave 
them utterance," and their words are 
called the words of the Spirit. It is 
probable that this complete control of 
mental and spiritual powers by the Holy 
Spirit in the Apostolic age, for the 
special needs of that age, is what is 
termed baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is 
not logical to assume, however, that bap- 
tism in the Holy Spirit must always be 
accompanied with the same phenomena 
that attended it in the Apostolic age. If, 
in any age, the human spirit be submerged 
in, and come under the complete control 
of the Holy Spirit, we suppose it could 
properly be said that such person had 
received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 
Our only point here is that the term bap- 
tism, in its figurative use, whether it be a 
baptism of Spirit or of suffering, carries 
with it an extraordinary measure of influ- 
ence. 

But the fact that baptism in water had 
been selected as the act of initiation into 
the kingdom of God as a visible, organ- 



116 1balt==1bour StuDtes at tbe Cross. 

ized institution, and as a fit symbol of the 
soul's dedication to God's service, made 
it a fit word for Christ to U8e, in its fig- 
urative sense, setting forth His over- 
whelming sorrow, in devoting Himself to 
the accomplishment of His Father's will. 
He Himself had submitted to baptism at 
the hands of John, His forerunner, and 
in the utter consecration of His life to 
His high mission He was illustrating to 
all the coming ages the significance of 
that solemn act. The very perfection of 
His obedience to His Father's will in- 
volved the baptism of suffering to which 
He refers. When has it ever been differ- 
ent in any age of the world? He who 
would wear a crown must bear the cross. 
How little did the disciples of Jesus 
understand this law of promotion! Two 
of the most prominent of them went to 
the Master with the request that they be 
given the places of honor in His kingdom 
— the one to sit on His right hand and 
the other on His left. To this thought- 
less request Jesus replied: ''Ye know 
not what ye asko Are ye able to drink 



1Dalts!lbour StuDiea at tbe Gro00« 117 

the cup that I am about to drink?" To 
this they replied, ''We are able." Jesus 
then said, " My cup indeed ye shall drink ; 
but to. sit on ray right hand and on my 
left hand is not mine to give, but it is for 
them for whom it hath been prepared of 
my Father." Little did these disciples 
know that in the kingdom of Christ emi- 
nence comes to those who humble them- 
selves most and are able to drink the cup 
that He drank, and to be baptized with 
the baptism He was soon to be baptized 
with. Unfortunately this rebuke to the 
ambitious sons of Zebedee has not pre- 
vented the vain desire for high places in 
the kingdom of God since their day. 
There are still those who think to attain 
positions of influence and power by favor- 
itism or "good luck," rather than by 
patient toil and suffering. 

Let those who are ambitious to occupy 
a high place in Christ's kingdom answer 
this question: "Are ye able to drink the 
cup that I am about to drink?" If your 
faith and courage are not of the kind to 
endure hardships, privations, suffering 



118 1baIt=1bour StuDtes at tbe Qvobs. 

and death for the gospel's sake, pray ye 
rather for some humble place where you 
may cultivate these graces. Let these 
emblems remind us that our Lord and 
Master submitted to a baptism of sorrow 
and suffering, and that, if we should be 
called on to follow in His footsteps, the 
disciple is not better than His Master. 



XIX. 
THE LONE SUFFERER. 

I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the peoples 
there was no man with me. —Isa. 63: 3. 

THERE was a uniqueness about Jesus 
which set Him apart from all other 
men, and made Him, in a sense, alone, 
even when He was in the midst of the 
busy throng. Loneliness is not confined 
to the desert, far from the habitations of 
men. One may be alone in the midst of 
the surging crowd. Perhaps the loneliest 
feelings that any of us have ever experi- 
enced have been in the midst of a strange 
city, where thousands of human beings 
swept to and fro about us; their faces 
were strange to us, as also their names, 
occupations and characters. We were 
equally strange to them, and so for lack 

of knowledge and sympathy of each 
(119) 



120 Dalt:s1bour StuDiee at tbe Qto66. 

other, there was this sense of loneliness. 
Consider, then, the senses in which Christ 
must have been alone in the world. 

He was the only begotten of the Father. 
He stood in a unique relation to God. He 
alone of all the men in the world knew 
God. ''No man knoweth the Father but 
the Son, and he to whom the Son shall 
reveal him.'' He had a unique mission 
in the world. He came from heaven 
charged with the divine mission of re- 
deeming the race, by bringing men to the 
knowledge and service of God. He alone 
understood what that mission involved in 
the way of humiliation, and suffering, and 
death. He alone had any just concep- 
tion of the spiritual nature of the king- 
dom He was to establish, and of the great 
principles which were to control the lives 
of its citizens. He alone, therefore, of 
all the sons of men was in sympathy and 
fellowship with God's thought and plan 
for redeeming the world. None knew sin 
as Jesus Christ knew it, although He 
Himself was sinless. His spiritual in- 
sight, His intimate knowledge of God, 



1baIt^1bour StuDiea at tbe Grose. 121 

His thorough knowledge of man's nature 
and possibilities, His clear grasp of truth 
and righteousness — all these gave Him a 
conception of sin and its awful conse- 
quences to the human soul which no one 
else had. His knowledge of human 
nature, in all its weakness and its envi- 
ronment, gave Him a sympathy for man 
which no one else possessed. In the low- 
est and most despised of human beings 
He saw possibilities of good, and sought 
to penetrate through the outward crust of 
sin and wretchedness to the better nature, 
and to rouse it from its dormant condi- 
tion. No other man ever had such sym- 
pathy for human suffering and need as 
Jesus had. His soul was sensitive to 
every cry of human want, and His hand 
was outstretched to give relief to every 
form of human suffering. In all these 
respects, therefore. He was separate and 
apart from other men. Even His inti- 
mate disciples, who knew Him better than 
others, and who loved Him more, did not 
understand and could not enter into 



123 Ibalfsslbour StuDtee at tbe Cro06* 

sympathy with Him in the great mission 
which brought Him to the world. 

As the on-coming shadows of His death 
grew darker, more and more did He seem 
to be alone. Even those who loved Him 
best could not walk with Him on the high 
plane of His great purposes and plans. 
And when, on that fatal night of His be- 
trayal, the pent-up fury of His enemies 
was about to burst upon His devoted 
head, even His disciples forsook Him and 
fled in the darkness, and He was alone 
with His enemies. Before the Jewish 
Sanhedrim and at the bar of Pilate there 
seems to have been none to advocate His 
cause and to share in the insult and igno- 
miny that were heaped upon Him. He 
was alone in Gethsemane's shadows, alone 
in His trial, alone He trod the via dolo- 
rosa^ bearing His cross to Golgotha. He 
was alone in His agony and shame on the 
cross. None knew Him, none understood 
Him, none entered into full sympathy 
with His great mission. 

A panegyrist of Napoleon said of him 
that he was '' wrapped in the solitude of 



1balf=1bout StuDteg at tbe Qvob6. 123 

his own originality." This, to an infi- 
nitely greater degree, was true of Christ; 
but He was wrapped, also, in the solitude 
of His great and beneficent plans for the 
world's redemption. This is a part of 
the penalty for goodness and greatness. 
No man ever set his mark high and sought 
diligently to rise to it, that did not meet 
with the opposition of those whose aims 
in life were lower and less worthy. Even 
success is an affront to those who fail. 
Genius is heresy to mediocrity. Good- 
ness is a rebuke to impurity. It was 
Joseph's purity of character and loftiness 
of aim that made him offensive to his 
brethren, and caused him to be sold into 
bondage. Superior learning has always 
been offensive to ignorance and to a nar- 
row provincialism. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that Christ, in the infinite 
sweep of His great plans, and of His 
broad sympathies, should be a continual 
offense to men of narrow minds and low, 
earthly plans and ambitions. They es- 
teemed '' Him stricken, smitten of God." 
They could not understand that He would 



124 lbalfs=1bour Studies at tbe Qtoee. 

be willing to endure suffering and igno- 
miny for the welfare of men. The very 
loftiness of Christ's aim, the purity of 
His life, the breadth and tenderness of 
His sympathy, were the chief causes of 
the opposition to Him and of the perse- 
cution that was heaped upon His head. 

These facts may well remind us, espe- 
cially in the presence of these symbols of 
Christ's body and blood, that in propor- 
tion as we follow Christ in singleness of 
aim, in purity of life, in unselfish efforts 
to benefit our race, in the courageous re- 
buke of hypocrisy and sin of every kind, 
we shall forfeit the friendship of the 
world, whose aims, instincts and sympa- 
thies are not those of Christ. We shall 
not be wholly alone, however, for there 
are others seeking to follow Christ, and 
fellowship with these shall be sweet and 
sacred. But we are not to think it a 
strange thing if the world turns away 
from us and refuses to sympathize with 
our principles and aims. Even Christ 
had to 'Hread the wine press alone." 
These prophetic words signify, too, that 



1balt=1bour StuMes at tbe Qxoee. 125 

Christ is to be alone in judgment, as well 
as in suffering. The Father hath com- 
mitted all judgment to the Son. As He 
hath suffered for us, so will He judge us. 
Surely we could not wish a more merciful 
Judge than He will be. He himself hath 
worn our human nature and '' hath been 
tempted in all points like as we are, yet 
without sin." Beloved, let us depart from 
this table to-day, resolved to be true to 
Jesus Christ, our great Leader, no matter 
what earthly friendships we may forfeit 
for so doing, nor what earthly emolu- 
ments and honors we may be called upon 
to surrender; for the friendship of Jesus 
Christ, and the joy of hearing Him say to 
us in the last day, " Well done, good and 
faithful servant," will be worth infinitely 
more to us than all the wealth, honors, 
and pleasures of this fleeting world. 



XX. 

BLESSEDNESS OF BEARING RE- 
PROACHES FOR CHRIST. 

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you^ and when they 
shall separate you from their company, and reproach you, 
and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy : for, behold, your reward 
is great in heaven: for in the same manner did their fath- 
ers unto the prophets.— Z/wfce 6: 22, 23. 

THIS is one of the hard lessons taught 
by Jesus, and illustrated in His own 
life. No man can see at once that it is a 
blessed thing to be hated, separated from, 
reproached; and have his name cast out 
as evil by his fellow-men, even in a holy 
cause. It seems to us, for the time, very 
''grievous" that we should thus be perse- 
cuted for righteousness' sake, and we are 
often disposed to repine at our lot, and 
even murmur, sometimes, at the ways of 
Providence. These words of Jesus teach 
us a wiser philosophy of life. There is a 

(126) 



1balts=t)our StuDtee at tbe Qxoes. 137 

blessedness which belongs to a true life 
lived under these adverse circumstances. 
1. There is, first of all, a conscious- 
ness of the genuineness of our Christian 
faith and loyalty, which, under other con- 
ditions, cannot exist in so intense a de- 
gree. And there is a blessedness in this 
which few imagine. The man who has 
never had occasion to test his loyalty to 
Christ, by being called on to endure re- 
proaches and persecutions for His name's 
sake, does not know whether his faith 
would be equal to such an emergency or 
not. We once knew a professed Chris- 
tian whose faith and courage failed him 
when asked to carry to the church the 
emblems for use in the Lord's Supper, as 
it was an infidel town, and skeptics 
sneered at him on the way. Think you 
such a man can ever know the blessedness 
of one who bears, heroically, the re- 
proaches and sneers of the enemies of 
Christ? Many of those who read this 
have had enough experience in bearing 
up under slander and misrepresentation 
while seeking to do their Christian duty, 



128 1balf=1bour StuDies at tbe Qvobb. 

to have had a sense of the new dignity 
that comes to the soul with the conscious- 
ness of being so related to Christ as to 
suffer the reproaches that were heaped 
upon Him. It was this feeling that made 
the early disciples rejoice ''to be counted 
worthy" to suffer for Christ's sake. 
Nothing, we believe, would do so much 
to restore to the church of to-day the 
triumphant joy and tranquil peace of the 
early church, as the adoption of such an 
aggressive policy against sin and popular 
evils as would bring upon it the active op- 
position of all the enemies of Christ. It 
would soon become conscious of a divine 
mission, and recognize itself as the re- 
pository of a special trust. This perse- 
cution of the church for righteousness' 
sake would tend greatly to its purifica- 
tion. False professors would not care to 
be identified with an institution that was 
opposed and persecuted by the pleasure- 
loving and time-serving. It would for the 
same reason tend to individual purifica- 
tion, for the higher nature, once aroused 
to combat with the evil forces without, 



1balt:s1bour StuDiea at tbe Ct066» 129 

would make war with the evil forces 
within and bring them into subjection. 
It would be a great mistake to suppose 
because Christ's earthly life was so 
marked by the fierce opposition of evil 
forces, and by continual self-denial, that 
it was therefore an unhappy life. On the 
contrary there is evidence that he experi- 
enced a height and fullness of joy un- 
known to others. ''These things have I 
spoken unto you," said Jesus, ''that my 
joy may be in you, and that your joy may 
be fulfilled." We are justified in infer- 
ring from this passage alone, that He felt 
Himself to be in conscious possession of 
a peculiar joy which He called "my joy," 
and which He was anxious that His dis- 
ciples should share. What the nature of 
this joy was there is little room to. doubt. 
It was the two-fold joy of fellowship 
with His Father, and the luxury of doing 
good to others, even to those who were 
persecuting Him. It was in the "joy set 
before Him" of anticipating the results 
of His sufferings for others, that He 
9 



130 Dalfssibout StuDies at tbe Gros6» 

found strength to endure the cross, de- 
spising the shame. 

If 5 therefore, the opposition which we 
incur in being loyal to Christ is the very 
means of developing within us the high- 
est type of earthly joy, we can understand 
Christ's words, quoted above, and the 
Lord's Supper has additional meaning to 
us. It is saying to us as often as we 
come to it, These are the memorials of 
a life whose blessedness consisted in the 
patient endurance of poverty, the scorn 
and hatred of wicked men, and persecu- 
tion unto death, while He wrought for 
human good. 

2. It is less difficult to understand that 
a part of the blessedness of enduring the 
things which Christ mentions is the de- 
velopment of a robust and courageous 
type of Christian character. Whoso, by 
the grace of God, is enabled to endure 
being hated, reviled and opposed, with- 
out murmuring or impatience, and who 
turns neither to the right nor to the left 
in the discharge of his obligations to God 
and to his fellow men because of any hard- 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cross. 131 

ship it may impose on him, has attained to 
a strength and courage in character which 
is the most valuable possession on earth, 
and which, in a large measure, lifts him 
above, and makes him independent of , out- 
ward circumstances. 

The special reason assigned by Jesus 
why one should ''rejoice and leap for 
joy" who is the object of hatred, ostra- 
cism and reproaches for the Son of Man's 
sake, is that " great is his reward in 
heaven." In proportion as we have been 
sorely tested here, and have, under God, 
been able to abide faithful, will our re- 
ward be great in heaven. That reward, 
however, will no doubt be based on the 
qualities of character which have been 
developed here under the disciplinary 
agencies of God's providence; but just 
what its nature will be we cannot know 
now. But it will be ''great" and it will 
be enduring. Christ's words are a suffi- 
cient guarantee of that. That is enough. 
That fires the heart and the imagination. 
Under the inspiration of such a promise, 
renewed to us each time as we gather 



132 1balts:lbout StuDies at tbe Qvoee. 

about the table of the Lord, shall we not 
acquit ourselves nobly in the battle-field 
of life I 

Jesus, I my cross have taken, 
All to leave and follow Thee ; 
I am poor, despised, forsaken; 
Thou, henceforth, my all shall be , 



XXI. 
THE MIND OF CHRIST. 

Have this [mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; 
who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be 
on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the 
form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and 
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, be- 
coming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the 
Gross. ^Phil. 2:5-8. 

IN this profound passago. the apostle is 
enforcing the duty of unselfishness and 
humility as the essential conditions of 
unity and peace among brethren. As 
was the custom among the apostles, the 
example of Christ is referred to as the 
highest exemplification of the graces 
which it was sought to inculcate. In one 
of his daring flights of inspiration, in 
which he identifies his theology with that 
of John, Paul here affirms, in boldest 
language, the pre-existence of Christ, and 

that, too, ''in the form of God." This 
( 133 ) 



134 lbalts=t)our StuDies at tbe Qtoee. 

''form of God" we are to understand as 
meaning that which outwardly manifests 
the essence or nature of God ; the essen- 
tial attributes of the divine Being. But 
this subsistence in the form of God, 
Christ did not regard as a prize to be 
tenaciously grasped, but, on the contrary. 
He ''emptied Himself," and took upon 
Him "the form of a servant." That is, 
this great pre-existent Being exchanged 
"the form of God" for "the form of a 
servant!" Was ever condescension like 
that? Was there ever humility so low, 
and self-abnegation so complete? Why 
should this great and infinite Being who 
dwelt in the bosom of the Father, and 
who possessed all the outward manifesta- 
tions of divine glory, be willing to ex- 
change all this "for the form of a ser- 
vant" and be found in the likeness of 
men? There is but one conceivable an- 
swer to this question: He saw that God's 
great purpose cd*ncerning humanity could 
be carried out only by his assumption of 
our human nature, with all the limita- 
tions and humiliations, and suffering, and 



1balt:s1bout StuDiee at tbe dvoee. 135 

sorrow, which that involved. There was 
a great crisis in our world-history which 
demanded the incarnation. On the plane 
of manhood must be fought the battle 
that would determine the destiny of the 
human race. 

Sublimer thought there is none con- 
ceivable to the human mind, than that of 
this Creator of worlds, the eternal Logos, 
who was in the beginning with the Fath- 
er, stripping Himself of the divine glo- 
ries and stooping down to the plane of 
our human nature, and not stopping, 
either, at the highest summits of human 
life, but descending to the lowest condi- 
tions of poverty and obscurity, in order 
that he might enter into sympathy with 
human needs and become the Savior of 
the world. This was the ''mind of 
Christ" — that he was willing to exchange 
the glories of Godhood for the humility 
of a servant in order to rescue the per- 
ishing. To what extent, my brethren, is 
this ''mind of Christ" in us? How much 
of dignity, of position, of wealth, of 
social standing, of ease, of worldly repu- 



136 1balt^1bour StuDies at tbe Croee* 

tation, have we been willing to lay aside 
that we might become the servants of 
men, and the Saviors of our brothers and 
sisters who are perishing? 

Let us pause for a moment on the ques- 
tion, too high for us, perhaps, to ever 
fully solve, as to what was the nature of 
that self-emptying which Christ under- 
went in becoming flesh and dwelling 
among us. It must be obvious to every 
one who is capable of thinking upon the 
subject at all, that, in exchanging "the 
form of God" for ''the form of a serv- 
ant," Christ must needs have taken 
upon Him certain limitations. This was 
inevitable. If He was to be a man in 
reality and not in mere semblance, then 
he must needs be subject to the ordinary 
conditions and limitations of the flesh; 
that is to say, he must needs be hungry, 
weary, and be subjected to temptation, 
and trial, and pain, as all other men. 
This was necessary that he might enter 
into all the experiences of our human 
nature. Whatever of outward glory that 
corresponds to the divine attributes which 



1balts=1bour StuMee at tbe Qvobb. 137 

He enjoyed in common with the Father 
before the world was, was laid aside in 
this condescension. That there was even 
a certain limitation of His omniscience 
involved in this voluntary condescension 
is implied by his own words. To what 
extent this applies we do not know. It is 
safe to affirm, however, that it in no sense 
disqualified Him for the great office of 
Messiah — the world's Prophet, Priest and 
King. He came to execute this high 
office for humanity, and to this end He 
received the Spirit of God without meas- 
ure. We may rest with unshaken confi- 
dence, therefore, upon the infallibility of 
His teaching, the efficacy of His atone- 
ment, and the authority of His com- 
mands. It is difficult for us to associate 
supreme authority and dignity, and even 
divinity, with one who walks in the vale 
of poverty, shares the lot of humble men, 
performs the duties of a servant, and 
avoids all outward show of earthly pomp 
and splendor. And yet the lesson of 
Christ's life is, that real worth, that true 
nobility, that loftiest moral achievements. 



138 1balts=1bour StuDiea at tbe CtoBB. 

are independent of outward conditions 
such as men deem essential to greatness. 
Does it not even teach us that humanity 
may be a divine thing? 

No matter how many years this world 
may exist, what vast changes may occur, 
and what wonderful events may tran- 
spire, there can never be any example so 
inspiring, any story so thrilling, any trag- 
edy so melting as the condescension of 
Christ from the ''form of God" to the 
''form of a servant;" from receiving the 
homage of angels, to the reception of in- 
sults and ignominy at the hands of wicked 
men, from the joy of the heavenly life to 
the obedience of death. Nothing can 
ever equal that; and that is what the 
apostle holds up before us as the mani- 
festation of the "mind of Christ," say- 
ing to us, "Let this mind be in you, 
which was also in Christ Jesus." 

One prominent object of this memorial 
feast about which we are gathered to-day 
is to keep before our minds the great fact 
that Christ's incarnation and death are 
not only the basis of our hope, but an 



ibalts^lbour StuOiee at tbe Qvoee. 139 

example and inspiration of our life. If 
by participating in this communion to- 
day, and by this spiritual fellowship with 
Christ and with one another, we shall be 
better able to go forth from this place to 
exemplify the mind of Christ in all low- 
liness of service, in all patience of suf- 
fering, in all willingness of condescen- 
sion, not counting earthly glory, and po- 
sition, and fame, prizes to be grasped, 
but rather to be willingly surrendered, if 
need be, that we may the better serve our 
race, then, indeed, shall this institution 
have accomplished in us the purpose of 
Him who instituted it. To this end may 
the dear Lord add His divine blessing! 



XXII. 
CHRIST THE SOUL'S FOOD. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of 
the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in 
yourselves. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my 
blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last 
day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood 
abideth in me, and I in him.— John 6: 53-56. 

THIS passage is understood by some 
commentators to refer to the Lord's 
Supper. The truth seems to be, how- 
ever, that both the Lord's Supper and 
this language of the Savior refer to the 
same great spiritual truth, namely: that 
we live by becoming partakers of Christ ; 
that He is the true life of the soul; that 
He is the soul's only satisfaction. In the 
passage just quoted this truth is stated, 
figuratively, under the familiar terms of 
eating and drinking. In the Lord's Sup- 
per this same truth is set forth pictorial- 
(140) 



lbalf==1bout StuOiee at tbe Qtoee. I4i 

ly. The great spiritual truth that under- 
lies the outward act of partaking of the 
bread and of the wine, is that we partake 
by faith of Christ's life, and are thus 
spiritually refreshed and invigorated. It 
is not true that, by the mere act of par- 
taking of these emblems, we have life in 
ourselves, that is, eternal life. This is 
only true of those who partake of Christ 
in the deeper sense meant by this pas- 
sage. The Jews stumbled at this saying, 
and many of his disciples, even, went 
back from Him because they did not un- 
derstand its spiritual significance. "How 
can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 
they murmured among themselves. The 
great fact set forth by the Lord's Supper 
and stated in these figurative terms — that 
the soul can find true satisfaction only in 
Christ — was hidden from their dull eyes. 
Like many others since their day, they 
stumbled at the too literal understanding 
of Christ's words. 

Jesus said to the woman at the well, 
''Whosoever drinketh of the water that 
I shall give him shall never thirst; but 



142 ibalfsslbour StuDlee at tbe Qxoee. 

the water that I shall give him shall be- 
come in him a well of water, springing 
up unto eternal life." Here is the same 
great truth stated, on another occasion, 
and in different words, by the same great 
Teacher. Whoso believeth on Jesus 
Christ with all his heart, with a loving, 
obedient faith, thereby becomes a par- 
taker of the life of Christ. Figuratively 
speaking, such an one is eating the flesh 
of Christ and drinking His blood. 

This is a high claim which Christ makes 
for Himself and for His religion. He 
claims to furnish the only food that will 
satisfy the soul's hunger, the only drink 
that will quench the soul's thirst. If this 
be true, all other religions at best are 
only partial remedies for the soul's needs. 
They do not meet its deepest wants, they 
do not satisfy its most earnest longings. 
Is not this the basal fact on which Christ 
bases His great commission to ''Go into 
all the world and preach the gospel to 
every creature?" There is urgent neces- 
sity for this if His gospel contains the 



1balt=1bour StuDiea at tbe Cro66. 143 

only remedy for sin and the only rest for 
the weary soul. 

How does our own experience conform 
to this teaching of the Savior? Have we 
not found it true that Christ alone can 
meet the needs of the soul? One of our 
deepest needs is forgiveness of sin. Have 
we ever found forgiveness of sin any- 
where outside of Christ? We need to be 
reconciled to God, and to feel that He is 
our loving Father. Who but Christ can 
lead us into, reconciliation with God and 
show us the Father? How the soul longs 
for fellowship with God, the living 
God ! How it yearns for that friendship 
and sympathy which Christ only can give ! 
How the soul craves some knowledge of 
the life beyond — its reality and its nature! 
Who was it that brought ''life and im- 
mortality to light," except our Lord Je- 
sus Christ? These profound and endur- 
ing wants of the soul are supplied no 
where else than in Christ. How strong 
the soul may become when fed by such 
truths, and such hopes, and such inspira- 
tions! These are what we are to feed on. 



144 fbaltsslbour StuDiee at tbe Croas* 

They are the soul's food. Think of the 
perishing multitudes who are striving to 
satisfy their soul's deep hunger with 
fleshly indulgences and sensual enjoy- 
ments. These must be taught that Christ 
came to be the food of the higher nature, 
that they ''might have life, and that 
more abundantly." 

If this coming to the Lord's table 
means no more to us than the mere out- 
ward act of partaking of the bread and of 
the wine, and a transient remembrance 
of Christ, our souls will derive little ben- 
efit from it; but if by means of these out- 
ward symbols we enter into real spiritual 
fellowship with Christ, and by faith feed 
upon the great truths which He taught, 
and participate in the life which he lived, 
then, indeed we have eternal life and He 
will raise us up at the last day. For to 
enter into fellowship with Christ is to live 
the eternal life. That life begins here and 
continues in unbroken continuity across 
the line which men call death. It is end- 
less because it is divine. It partakes of 
the nature of God. What a blessed priv- 



Ibalt^lbour StuDie6 at tbe (Ito65. 145 

ilege it is, then, to be permitted to come 
to this memorial feast, and to signify, by 
our participation therein, the greater fact 
that our souls are feeding on Christ's 
life and that we are living by Him! May 
this truth sink deeply into all our hearts! 
And may we be able to look away from 
this literal table and its symbols, and 
from this gathering of disciples, to that 
great spiritual feast prepared for the 
faithful in the heavenly kingdom at 
which shall sit down the redeemed of 
God out of every nation, and kindred, 
and tribe, and tongue, to partake, with 
our glorified Master, of the higher joys 
and blessings of heaven ! We shall there 
feed on Christ, not by faith only, but by 
open vision, for we shall see Him as He 
is and be transformed into His image. 
10 



XXIII. 
LIFE THROUGH DEATH. 

The hour is come that the Son of man should be glori- 
fied. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of 
wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if 
it die, it beareth much fruit.— Jo/iw 12: 23, 24. 

IT had been one of the most exciting and 
eventful days in the life of Jesus. In 
the morning a great multitude who had 
come to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of 
the Passover, having heard that Jesus was 
coming, went forth to meet him with 
palm branches, as he came over the slope 
of Olivet, and shouted: '^Hosanna: 
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord, even the King of Israel." So 
great was this demonstration of joy 
among the common people that the jeal- 
ous Pharisees said, one to another, '' Be- 
hold how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world 

is gone after him." Among those who 
(146) 



1balt=1bour StuDtee at tbe QtoB6. 147 

had gone up to the feast were some 
Greeks, presumably proselytes to the 
Jewish faith and worship. There is 
an ancient tradition that these Greeks 
were messengers from the king of Edessa, 
who came to bring an offer of asylum to 
Jesus if He would go to that country. At 
any rate they came to Philip and re- 
quested an interview with Jesus. After 
Philip had consulted with Andrew about 
the propriety of the introduction, they 
both came to Jesus about the matter, 
and the reply of Jesus is: ''The hour is 
come that the Son of man should be glo- 
rified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
except a grain of wheat fall into the earth 
and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it 
beareth much fruit." 

Strange reply to such a request, it 
would seem at first thought. And yet on 
reflection, it is not difficult to trace the 
under-current of thought which probably 
connected this request of the Greeks with 
this reply. The coming of these repre- 
sentatives from the most cultured people 
of the world seems to have reminded 



148 1barf=:1bour StuDtee at tbe Grose* 

Him that all nations were to come to 
Him and that the isles were to wait for 
His law. But with that thought of do- 
minion over the world comes the memory 
of the solemn truth, that He is to mount 
to the throne of power only by treading 
the path of humiliation, suffering and 
death. In what way could He have ex- 
pressed that truth so clearly and so natur- 
ally as by the illustration from nature 
which He employs, about the grain of 
wheat dying in order to glorify itself in 
a multiplication of life? Let us seek to 
grasp the Master's thought, and learn the 
lesson he would teach. 

These Greeks had heard of the wonder- 
ful works of Jesus, of His feeding the 
hungry multitudes, stilling the tempest, 
healing the sick, and even raising the 
dead; and they had doubtless heard, too, 
that He was a great Teacher. They 
would know more about this wonderful 
personage; they would see Him, hear 
Him, and witness some of His miracles, 
and thus understand the secret of His 
power. If He were, indeed, a wiser 



Ibalt^lbour StuDiee at tbe Qtoee. 149 

teacher than Socrates or Plato, they 
would be glad to hear Him unfold the 
deep mysteries of life. Was it not in 
this spirit that a Greek would most likely 
request to "see Jesus?" If so, Jesus 
knew it, and how completely and pro- 
foundly does his answer meet the whole 
scheme of Grecian thought, as to the 
world's salvation. Not by philosophy, 
not by art, not by education alone, can 
the world be saved. Life can only come 
through death. 

As if He would say, ''Yes, the hour 
of my glorification is come, but alas! 
how different will be the manner of its 
realization from that which these Greeks 
are thinking about! It is in the moral 
and spiritual world, as it is in the mate- 
rial. Except the grain of wheat fall into 
the earth and die it abideth alone. It can 
multiply itself only by dying. Through 
death the life of the grain appears again, 
glorified in its new form and multiplied 
into many grains. So, unless the Son of 
Man die He would abide alone, the only 
one of a new type of humanity. But by 



150 tbalf^Dour StuMea at tbe Qxoee. 

my death I will become the Savior of 
men, and annumbered millions shall be 
transformed into my likeness. This, too, 
is a general law of life in the spiritual 
world, for whosoever loveth his life so 
well that he fears to lay it down for 
others, loses it; but he that holds this 
mortal life in so light esteem as to sacri- 
fice it for truth and duty, shall find the 
life eternal." 

Here is a profounder philosophy than 
Socrates or Plato ever taught. Life 
through death is a law that runs through 
all worlds. It finds its highest exemplifi- 
cation in Christ, who became a sharer in 
our flesh and blood in order that * 'through 
death He might bring to naught him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil, 
and might deliver all them who through 
fear of death were all their lifetime sub- 
ject to bondage." Not only so, but the 
sublime act of surrendering His life for 
the sins of the world is such a manifesta- 
tion of the divine compassion for the 
sinner, and of divine condemnation of 
sin, as to be the most potent means of 



1balt==lbout StuDiea at tbe Cross* 151 

bringing men to the conviction of siri and 
to reconciliation with God. The story of 
Christ's death for our sins and His resur- 
rection for our justification, wherever 
preached, has been the power of God 
unto salvation to everyone that believeth. 
It has raised men from the lowest depths 
of moral degradation to the high plane of 
righteousness, as revealed in Christ, and 
has lifted up savage nations from the 
grossness of barbarism to the refinements 
of Christian civilization. 

Let it be carefully noted that Christ's 
idea of a life that is a failure, is one that 
remains *' alone," that does not spiritu- 
ally multiply itself. Could He not have 
called twelve legions of angels to rescue 
Him from the peril of crucifixion and 
death? 

Certainly, but in that event He must 
abide alone, the only representative of 
the new and divine order of humanity. 
That would have been a complete failure 
of His mission. What shall we say of one 
of Christ's disciples who is content to 
save himself, and not willing, at the price 



152 1balfs=1bout StuDiee at tbe Cro66* 

of self-denial and suffering, to save 
others? Is not his life a failure? What 
of the church that is content to ''abide 
alone" in a great city, not seeking to 
multiply itself in the planting of other 
churches even at the risk of weakening 
itself? Is it not a failure, as Christ meas- 
ures success? What of the religious body 
that is lacking in the missionary spirit, 
and refuses to give its treasure and 
its best men and women for the world's 
evangelization? Is it not out of the line 
of the divine law of life and growth? O, 
ye easy-going, unburdened, respectable, 
comfortable Christians, who have never 
laid your lives on the altar of Christ's 
service, resolve, as ye sit at this table to- 
day, that through self-crucifixion, you 
will enter upon the real Christian life ! 



XXIV. 
IMITATORS OF GOD. 

Be ye, therefore, imitators of God, as beloved children; 
and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave 
himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for 
an odor of a sv^eet smell.— Eph. 5:1. 

IN the above text there is illustrated a 
principle which has frequent applica- 
tions in the New Testament. A certain 
line of conduct or element of character is 
pointed out, and then the example of 
Christ is adduced as the highest exempli- 
fication of the virtue which it is intended 
to inculcate. Here the Apostle would 
have Christians to be " imitators of God, 
as beloved children." This may seem at 
first a very high ideal of Christian life, 
and so, indeed, it is; but it is an ideal 
which is made possible by virtue of our 
relationship with God. After all, what 

is more natural than that the children 
(153) 



154 HbnlUTjoxxt StuDies at tbe Cro60* 

should imitate their parents? Who has 
not noticed that it is often the highest 
ambition of the little child to act like its 
papa or mamma? This is what the 
Apostle would have us do ''as beloved 
children," imitate our divine Father. It 
cannot prove to be other than a helpful 
habit for each of us in our daily conduct 
to ask, concerning every act, Is this God- 
like? Is it such an act as Grod would ap- 
prove? Here is a standard or rule of life 
which every one who knows God, as He is 
revealed in Christ, can carry about with 
him and apply to every issue that comes 
before him. 

But the Apostle would have us to be 
*' imitators of God" in one vital partic- 
ular which he specifies, namely, that we 
"walk in love." This walking in love 
means that our whole course of life, in 
reference to each other and to the world 
at large and to God, is to be in love. How 
else could we be " imitators of God?" for 
"God is love." In harmony with the 
principle referred to above, the example 
of Christ is cited as the measure of love 



lbalt^lbout StuDtes at tbe Qtoee. 155 

which Christians should exhibit one 
toward another and toward the world. 
We are to " walk in love, even as Christ 
also loved you and gave Himself up for 
us." Not only is the example of Christ 
here held up as the motive and the model 
of our conduct one toward another, but 
that sublime exhibition of Christ's love 
in which He gave Himself up for us is 
called up as indicating the proper meas- 
ure of intensity for our love. How often 
do the apostles summon us to the cross 
and ask us to sit beneath its shadow and 
contemplate its suffering victim, offering 
Himself as a sacrifice to God in our 
behalf, in order that we may catch the 
spirit of His life, and walk in His foot- 
steps ! Where else could a Christian go 
to see so well what is the very heart and 
essence of Christain life? Herein, no 
doubt, lies the philosophy of the ordi- 
nance of the Lord's Supper. It is a picto- 
rial representation of the death of Christ 
brought constantly before our minds to 
teach us the great fundamental lesson of 
loving one another and of sacrificing our- 



156 lbalts=1bour StuDiea at tbe Cro60» 

selves for others' good. If we read 
aright, this morning, the lesson of this 
institution, we see in it a divine call to 
be " imitators of Grod." It is a summons 
directed to that which is most divine 
within us, calling us to strive after the 
highest things and to imitate the noblest 
ideal. 

How many, alas! are contented to be 
imitators of men of the world, who seek 
its honors, its riches and its pleasures, 
and who live for self, not for Grod I How 
many there are who are well content if 
they feel that they are as good as their 
neighbors, no matter how far below the 
divine standard the lives of such neigh- 
bors may fall! Many of us, too, are 
prone to excuse ourselves for the low and 
imperfect type of Christian life which we 
represent, by the infirmities of the flesh, 
or by our unfavorable environment. But 
this call of the Apostle to be imitators of 
God, emphasized and reinforced as it is 
by the example of Christ's sacrifice for 
us, is a rebuke to any of us who cherish 
these low ideals or frame these unworthy 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbe QtOBB. 157 

excuses. God means that we shall imi- 
itate Him and be followers of His Son 
here in this world, in the flesh, and sur- 
rounded by all the temptations of our 
earthly existence. He does not expect us 
to do this in our own strength, but 
through the grace that is offered to us 
freely in Christ Jesus. We may not plead 
our inherent weakness as an apology for 
living habitually on a low plane of Chris- 
tian life, since God has furnished us the 
necessary re-enforcement by which we 
may overcome the evil that is in the world 
and live true and heroic lives, as many of 
God's children have done in the past. 

We know God only as He is revealed to 
us in Christ. Those who best understand 
Christ's character know best God's char- 
acter. We are imitators of God in the 
highest and truest sense when we are fol- 
lowers of Christ, not nominally, but in 
deed and in truth. This brings God 
nearer to us. We can understand Him 
better because the divine life is lived un- 
der human conditions common to us all, 
and we can see how God would act were 



158 1balts=1bour StuOles at tbe Qxobb. 

He in our place. We see, for instance, 
how he would ignore the honors and the 
riches of this world as the chief things to 
be sought and attained; how He would 
resist temptation; how He would turn 
away from everything that defiles the 
soul; how He would have supreme care 
for the welfare and happiness of others; 
how He would lay down His human life, 
if necessary, to save men; what patience 
He would exhibit toward the weaknesses 
and errors of His fellow-men, and how 
He would seek to woo and win them 
from their evil ways. All these things, 
and many others, we see in the life of 
Christ. He, then, is the only infallible 
standard of Christian living. Shall we 
not, at each weekly observance of this 
institution, which brings His love and 
sacrifice before us so vividly, resolve that, 
in the strength which He gives, we will 
strive to be more like Him, in love to 
God and in all loving service to our fel- 
low-men ? Only by so doing will we be 
able to " walk worthy of the high voca- 
tion wherewith we are called." 



XXV. 
. MUTUAL BURDEN BEARING. 

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law 
of Christ.— GaL 6: 2. 

PERHAPS there is no duty which is more 
frequently and urgently enjoined 
upon Christians in the New Testament 
than that of mutual sympathy, helpful- 
ness, and a tender regard and care for 
each other. The reason for this is obvi- 
ous enough. We are mortals, having the 
infirmities of the flesh, surrounded with 
temptations and trials, and subjected to 
bitter disappointments. Every heart has 
its own burden of grief, but some have 
burdens heavier than others, and they 
often grow weary under what seems too 
much for them to bear alone. Every one 
who has passed through the discipline of 
sorrow and suffering, knows by experi- 
ence that it is a wonderful relief to an 
(159) 



160 1balt*1bour StuDies at tbe axoee. 

over-burdened soul when another is will- 
ing to enter into the fellowship of his 
sorrow and share it with him. There is 
no balm for a sad and bruised heart like 
genuine sympathy. There is no power so 
efficient in winning an erring brother back 
to his rightful allegiance to God as a 
tender, commiserate love, which, making 
all due allowance for the weakness of the 
flesh, seeks in humility to lead back the 
erring one to paths of righteousness. 
The universal need of mutual sympathy 
and care for each other, is the ground of 
these repeated exhortations. 

There is no place more appropriate for 
enforcing this too much neglected duty 
of mutual burden-bearing than here be- 
fore the cross, in the presence of these 
visible emblems of our Lord's sacrifice 
for us. In such a presence, hard must be 
the heart, and dull the spiritual vision, 
which does not feel a sense of gratitude 
to the great-hearted, sympathetic Christ, 
who took upon himself the burden of the 
world's sin and sorrow, and in agony of 
soul inconceivable and far transcending 



1balt:=1bour StuDiee at tbe Gvo66. 161 

the pangs of physical suffering, submitted 
meekly to the death of the cross for our 
sakes. This unsolicited act of self-sacri- 
fice was the spontaneous expression of a 
heart of infinite love. Not that we loved 
Him, exclaims the Apostle, but that He 
loved us and gave Himself for us. Here 
was the highest possible expression of 
that law of Christ which this text enjoins 
us to fulfill. The law of Christ is the 
new commandment which He gave, that 
we love one another, even as He loved us. 
This law the Apostle says is fulfilled by 
bearing one another's burdens. We can- 
not, therefore, fail to connect this duty 
of mutual burden-bearing with that great 
burden which Christ bore for us, and 
which is visibly represented by these 
simple emblems. 

There is a sense, of course, as the 
Apostle proceeds to remind us immedi- 
ately, in which every one must bear his 
own burden. Each must be responsible 
to God for himself. The two injunctions, 
coming so close together emphasize both 

our duty towards others and our indi- 
11 



162 1balts:lbour StuDtea at tbe Gro66» 

vidual responsibility. It is as if the 
Apostle had said, *'Bear ye one another's 
burden of weakness and sorrow, for every 
one must bear his owu burden of respon- 
sibility." If it be asked how we may bear 
one another's burdens, love will readily 
furnish the answer. Love always finds a 
way of expressing itself and of entering 
into sympathy with the object loved. 
It is the most natural thing in the world 
for one who loves another who is in dis- 
tress to seek in some way to relieve such 
distress or to share it. It is wonderful, 
too, how simple an effort on our part 
sometimes accomplishes so much in light- 
ening the burdens of others. Sometimes 
a warm pressure of the hand, a word of 
sympathy or encouragement, a little act 
of kindness, will be a ray of sunshine to 
some soul that is struggling on in dark- 
ness. How little it has cost us! What 
happiness it has afforded another ! What 
the heart hungers for in its hour of trial 
. more than for wealth, or ease, or honor, 
is the recognition and sympathy from 
others whose regard and appreciation it 



1balf:=1bour StuDles at tbe CtO00. 163 

longs for. We cannot, therefore, plead 
poverty as a reason for not complying 
with this injunction to " bear one an- 
other's burdens." Nothing but poverty 
of soul and leanness of spirit can dis- 
qualify us from helping one another. 

The little girl, who, on being asked by 
her teacher what good she had done dur- 
ing the past week, said, in reply, she had 
done nothing except, when her little 
playmate, Bessie, sat apart by herself, at 
playtime, weeping because she had lost 
her mother, to go to her, put her arm 
around her and cry with her, had entered 
into the real secret of bearing one an- 
other's burdens. Nor can we plead as an 
excuse for leaving others to stagger un- 
der their own burdens, unaided by us, 
that we have our own sorrows and disap- 
pointments which make up all the burden 
that we feel able to bear. The very fact 
that we have these experiences of sorrow 
and disappointment qualifies us to be 
angels of mercy to other sorrowing 
hearts. Who can so truly and tenderly 
sympathize with a broken-hearted mothf^,^ 



164 lbalt==1bour StuDies at tbe Cxobs. 

laj^'ing the form of her beautiful child un- 
der the green turf, as one whose own 
heart has been crushed with the same be- 
reavement, and out of whose bitter expe- 
rience there has come the peace which 
passeth understanding? In periods of 
trouble we instinctively turn for sympathy 
to those whom we know are not strangers 
to the discipline of sorrow. 

The strange thing about it all is, as 
our own experience tells us, that when 
we share our brother's burden we not 
only lighten his but lessen ours at the same 
time. There is no remedy, perhaps, for 
personal sorrow so effectual as the effort 
to administer consolation to others. The 
consciousness that we have been the 
means of dissipating the darkness from 
some shadowed heart, brings a sense of 
relief to our own souls which is compen- 
sation ample in itself for the little sacri- 
fice it may have caused us. There is no 
wiser advice to those who have suffered 
great afiiiction than to seek out other 
homes which sorrow has invaded, and 
s^^^k; to brighten them with the promises 



1balf=1bour StuDies at tbe Qtoee. 165 

and consolations of the Gospel, and by 
personal sympathy. Surely the method 
which lightens another's burden, while at 
the same time it diminishes our own, is 
worthy of universal practice. 

Surely, brothers, there is need for our 
kindly offices of mutual burden-bearing. 
How many the burdened hearts, how 
many the discouraged lives ! 

*'0 the world is full of sighs, 
Full of sad and weeping eyes; 
Help your fallen brother rise, 
While the days are going by." 

Looking back through more than 
eighteen centuries of history to the time 
when Jesus of Nazareth walked this 
earth, the most marked feature of His 
ministry, as He rises before us, is His at- 
titude of benignity and kindness and sym- 
pathy to all forms of human suffering. 
It is this that enshrines Him in our hearts 
and makes Him King of humanity. If 
we would be lovingly remembered by 
those who are to succeed us upon the 
stage of human action, let us be like the 
Master, going about doing good, bearing 
one another's burdens, and so fulfilling 
the law of Christ. 



XXVI. 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and 
mine own know me, even as the Father knoweth me and 
I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.*' 
—John 10: 14, 15. 

THIS passage brings before us the beau- 
tiful pastoral scene, so common in 
the East, of the shepherd and his flock. 
It reminds us of that idylic poem in the 
Old Testament— the twenty-third Psalm 
— with which Jesus must have been fa- 
miliar. It is to be noted that Jesus claims 
for Himself the office which the inspired 
psalmist ascribes to the Lord: " 1 am the 
good shepherd." Some of the traits 
which mark the good shepherd and dis- 
tinguish him from the hireling, are given : 
''I knov/^ mine own and mine own know 
me." It is a most comforting truth for 
the disciple of Jesus to-day to realize, not 

only that he knows Christ, but that he is 

(166) 



1f3alt*1bour StuMee at tbe Qxoee. 167 

known of Christ. It is said that the 
Oriental shepherd has a name for each 
sheep in his flock, and that he knows his 
sheep and is able to call each one by its 
name, and that the sheep recognize their 
names, and the voice of the shepherd. 
Jesus declares that He knows each one 
of his disciples. This implies that He 
knows their names, their occupations, 
their surroundings, their temptations, 
their trials, their characters, their virtues 
and their faults; their hopes and their 
fears; their triumphs and their failures. 
The realization of this fact ought to 
intensify our feeling of personal relation- 
ship to Jesus Christ, and give an in- 
creased relish to prayer. If He knows all 
about us, individually, with what assur- 
ance may we go to Him in hours of strug- 
gle, and toil, and disappointment, or 
when we have gone astray, and seek His 
sympathy, and love, and forgiveness! 
We are too apt to forget the fact here 
stated that Christ cares for each indi- 
vidual disciple and knows each one by 
name, and is watching with deepest inter- 



168 1balt=1bout StuDiea at tbe (It066» 

est the progress of each soul in faith and 
hope and love. We know that Christ 
cares for the church in its entirety, and 
for the world, but it is hard for us to re- 
alize that He carries each one of us indi- 
vidually on His heart and knows us as 
His disciples. But this is one of the 
marks of the good shepherd. What a 
motive it is for us to unburden our souls 
in His presence ! 

The highest evidence, however, that 
Christ offers that He is the " good shep- 
herd " was his willingness to lay down 
His life for the sheep. This was some- 
times necessary among the shepherds of 
the East when their flocks were attacked 
by wild beasts. To run from danger and 
leave the flock exposed to wolves was 
characteristic of the hireling, not of the 
'' good shepherd." It is evidence of the 
prevision of Christ that He saw from the 
beginning the necessity for laying down 
His life for humanity. He had come 
into this world to rescue our race from 
sin and death. It was His lofty and 
philanthropic purpose to gather all the 



1balts=1bour StuDies at tbe Cross* 169 

scattered and alienated tribes of men into 
one loving brotherhood under His own 
leadership and deliver them from all their 
foes. But He saw that this divine enter- 
prise involved the necessity of His death. 
This was to be the supreme proof to the 
world that He was the true shepherd and 
not, like others, a pretender. Subse- 
quent history shows that He stood the 
test, and that He laid down His life for 
the sheep, that is, for all those who, in 
any age, would hear His voice and follow 
Him. 

We may well pause, reverently, in the 
presence of these visible tokens of our 
Lord's body and blood, to consider the 
greatness of our debt of gratitude to this 
''Good Shepherd " who laid down his life 
for us. If we consider the fierce wolves 
of human passion which were pursuing 
us, and how helpless and exposed was our 
condition without a divine Protector, we 
can but realize that we owe everything to 
Him ; that we are indebted to Him for all 
that we are and hope to be in the ages to 
come. We were wandering far away 



170 IbnlUHbont StuDiea at tbe Qvobb. 

from home and God, when the '* Good 
Shepherd" came and sought for us and 
found us, and brought us back to the fold, 
and has since guarded us with tender 
care. How can we ever allow our love 
for Him to grow cold, or permit ourselves 
to pursue a course of conduct that would 
be displeasing to Him? 

Let it be noted in this connection that 
Christ's sacrifice for us was voluntary. 
He laid down His life for us. '^ No one 
taketh it away from me, but I lay it down 
of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again." The 
necessity that prompted His death, there- 
fore, was the necessity of love. He 
freely and voluntarily surrendered His life 
for our benefit. What gift have we ever 
made to Christ to compare with this? 
What sacrifice have we ever made that is 
worthy of the name when we compare it 
with the offering up of Christ's life by the 
death of the cross? The great constrain- 
ing motive of Christian life is here shown 
to be love. So an apostle exclaimed, 
" The love of Christ constraineth us!" 



1balt=1bour StuDtee at tbe Croes* I7i 

It was not simply for the sheep which 
Christ had among the Jews that He was 
laying down His life. His vision was 
broad enough to take in other sheep. He 
saw, what no one else of His age was 
able to see, that by means of His death 
the middle wall of partition between Jew 
and Gentile would be broken down, and 
that merely national distinctions would 
be lost in the higher relationship which 
men would sustain to Him. '' Other 
sheep I have which are not of this fold; 
them also I must bring, and they shall 
hear my voice; and they shall become 
one flock, one shepherd." We are better 
able to understand the far-reaching 
meaning of these words now than were 
the disciples who first heard them. We 
know what Christ's death has accom- 
plished towards unifying the race and 
making of Jew and Gentile "one new 
man." Alas, that sectarian rivalry, jeal- 
ousy and party spirit have marred the 
unity of Christ's fold, and have erected 
barriers to separate those whom Christ 
recognizes as His sheep! But this can 



172 1balt=1bour StuDics at tbe Qxoee. 

only be temporary. It cannot be that 
Christ's plan for the unity of men will be 
permanently thwarted. The Galilean 
must still conquer, and all barriers to the 
unity of His followers must and shall be 
removed. 

Let us take away from this table of the 
Lord, to-day, this deeply-fixed purpose : 
that since the good Shepherd, Christ, has 
laid down His life for us, we henceforth 
will be more attentive to hear His voice 
and to follow Him, whithersoever He 
leadeth us. 



XXVII. 
RECONCILED AND SAVED. 

But God commendeth His own love toward us, in tliat, 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more 
then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved 
from the wrath of God through Him. For if, while we 
were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the 
death of His Son, much more being reconciled, shall we 
be saved by His life; and not only so, but we also rejoice 
in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom 
we have now received the reconciliation.— i2om. 5: 3-11. 

THIS is one of those familiar passages 
which Christians in all ages have 
delighted to meditate upon, as setting 
forth in clear light the love of God, the 
basis of our hope. The Apostle is writing 
to Christians. He is reminding them of 
the fact that God had loved the race and 
manifested His love for it " while we were 
yet sinners" and ''enemies" to God. 
His argument is that if God's love was 
great enough and magnanimous enough 

to extend' favor to us while we were His 
(173) 



174 1balt==1bour Studies at tbe Crose* 

** enemies," surely now, being reconciled 
to God by the death of His Son, His love 
will be adequate for our future needs. 
He will not do less for us, certainly, as 
friends, than He has done for us as 
'^ enemies." The fact that God loved 
men, even while they were in a state of 
rebellion against Him, well enough to 
give His only beloved Son to die in their 
behalf, is surely a firm basis for trust in 
the adequateness of God's love for all 
possible needs of the future. 

Two things are here said to be accom- 
plished for us through Christ: we are 
reconciled to God by His death and saved 
by His life. Let us meditate for a few 
moments on what is involved in these 
two words — reconciled and saved. The 
word reconciled implies, what is also said 
in the- passage, that we were '' enemies " 
to God, being alienated from Him through 
ignorance of His character and of His gra- 
cious designs and of our own needs. This 
was not only the state of the world at 
large prior to Christ's death, but it is the 
present state of all who are in ignorance 



fbalUHbom StuDlee at tbe Cto66. its 

of Christ's death, or who, having heard it, 
have refused to accept it as evidence of 
God's love. It is a strange and unnatural 
relation for rational beings to sustain 
toward their Creator. That such a being 
should be at enmity with Him who gave 
him being, and has endowed him with all 
the powers which he possesses, is a fact so 
strange that it would seem to require 
some explanation. That explanation is 
furnished us in the sinfulness of our de- 
praved natures which we have inherited 
from sinful progenitors. But, account 
for the fact as we may, there is no deny- 
ing it. On every hand we see evidences 
of man's enmity toward God. His will is 
contrary to the will of God. God wills 
that man should be holy, but men delight 
in those things which are impure and 
w^hich defile the soul. God wills that 
men should love one another, but men 
hate each other and strive to take advan- 
tage one of another. God desires that 
men should love Him because He has 
created them, and has nmde abundant 
provisions for their happiness; but many 



176 1balt=1bour StuDies at tbe Qvobb. 

hate God and are enemies to His divine 
government. The Apostle tells us, in an- 
other letter, that this alienation from 
God is through ignorance. Men often 
dislike each other because they do not un- 
derstand each other. If men knew God 
rightly they could but love Him. In 
God's great desire that men should un- 
derstand Him and know His love for 
them, He gave His only begotten Son 
to die for them. This is the great means of 
reconciliation with God. When men come 
to understand that God was in Christ, 
speaking those words of wonderful love 
and tenderness and performing those 
marvelous deeds of benevolence and com- 
passion, they get such a view of the divine 
character as breaks down all enmity. 
Men who have thought that God was un- 
feeling, austere and unmerciful in His 
judgments, unmindful of the needs of 
men, and who have, therefore, despised 
Him, are ready to exclaim, when they 
look at Him through Christ's teaching, 
" This is, indeed, a God whom I can love 
and adore. He is not only pure, and just, 



1balt:=1bour StuDiee at tbe Qvoee. 177 

and almighty, and allwise, but He is lov- 
ing, gracious and compassionate. In a 
word, He is our Father." This is the 
effect designed to be accomplished 
through the preaching of Christ crucified 
as the wisdom of God and the power of 
God, and this has always been the effect 
of such preaching when men have re- 
ceived it by faith. No honest-hearted, 
right-minded person can be at enmity 
with the God whom Jesus Christ has re- 
vealed. One may have difficulties over 
some things attributed to God by men 
who have imperfectly understood His 
character and His will, but the God whom 
Jesus reveals fills all the demands of our 
soul, and wins the affection of our heart. 
Let it be noted that the divine purpose 
concerning man is not fully accomplished 
by the death of Christ. Reconciliation 
with God is effected by that means; but 
we are told that having been reconciled 
by Christ's death much more shall we 
be saved by His life. There is salvation, 
then, that means more than reconcilia- 
tion with God and is effected through the 
12 



178 Ibalts'lbour StuDiee at tbc Qxobb. 

life of Christ. Tiiere is assimilation of 
our characters to the divine character. 
There is a growth in what is true and 
pure and good, that follows reconcilia- 
tion and is accomplished through the in- 
dwelling life of Christ. This is a great 
and comforting truth for Christians to 
learn. It is not in our own strength that 
we are to achieve the glorious destiny 
which God has prepared for us. Those 
who are reconciled to God through Jesus 
Christ are made partakers of His life, 
and a new source of strength is thus 
open to the believer, which reinforces 
his better nature and enables him to 
come off conqueror and more than con- 
queror through Christ. This is the truth 
which we would impress in this lesson 
at the table of the Lord. We see here 
the visible emblems of Christ's death 
and are reminded of the means of our 
reconciliation with God. But let us not 
fail to see also tiiat the Christ who died 
for us hath risen again and liveth for- 
evermore; and that it is through His life 
that we are going on from one degree of 



1balt:=1bour Studies at tbe Cro66. 179 

glory to another and being changed as 
by the Spirit of God into His divine 
image. We are not always to conceive 
of Christ as crucified for us, precious as 
the fact is ; we are to think of Him also 
as the living and reigning Lord who 
maketh intercession for us at the right 
hand of God. If He died for our sins, 
He also arose again for our justification. 
We have to do with a living Christ, and 
we triumph over sin within and without 
just in proportion as the life of Christ 
abideth in us. 

It is clear from this passage that salva- 
tion, in its broadest sense, includes not 
only forgiveness of sins, but transforma- 
tion into the likeness of Christ, and this 
process which begins with our conver- 
sion is to proceed until we are presented 
''faultless before the throne of His glory 
with exceeding joy." Let us see to it 
that our observance of this memorial in- 
stitution shall help us tow^ard the attain- 
ment of this high ideal. Let .us carry 
away from this place not only the tender 
remembrance of Christ's death in our 



180 1balt:=1bout Studies at tbe Qvobb. 

behalf, but also the joyful fact that He 
lives and intercedes for us, and that it is 
through His life that we are at last to 
achieve an immortal victory. 

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in Thee. 

Let the water and the blood 

From Thy riven side which flowed. 

Be of sin the double cure, 

Cleanse me from its guilt and power » 



XXVIII. 
GLORYING IN THE CROSS. 

But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been 
crucified unto me and I unto the world.— GaL 6: 14. 

THERE is perhaps no surer test of char- 
acter than what one glories in. 
Man is so constituted that he is sure to 
glory in something. Some glory in 
wealth and in the magnificence which 
wealth brings with it. Some glory in 
their oflScial position or social standing; 
others in their intellect, and others still 
in the power which they wield over men. 
But this text tells of one who, belonging 
to the brightest galaxy of intellects which 
have ever illuminated the world, declines 
to glory in anything save in the cross of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely this cross 
must stand for something exceedingly 
vital and important to win the homage 

of the intellect of such a man as Paul. 
(181) 



182 1balt=s1bour StuDiee at tbe Cro66* 

The cross in which Paul gloried stands 
for the whole revelation of love and good 
will on the part of God for a fallen race 
which was manifested in the death of 
Christ. The cross is the symbol of the 
divine sacrifice made for man's salvation. 
It is only another name for the gospel of 
Christ, which the same writer declares 
elsewhere to be " the power of God unto 
salvation." In another place "Christ 
crucified" is declared by him to be not 
only the " power of God " but the " wis- 
dom of God." These statements of the 
Apostle show that it was no ordinary 
thing to which he paid homage when he 
refused to glory, save in the cross of 
Christ. This great genius and inspired 
intellect of the first century saw in that 
cross and in what the cross stood for, a 
power that was mightier than the pano- 
plied armies of Eome, and a wisdom that 
was superior to all the philosophy and 
learning of ancient, sensuous Greece. 
It was a power that would subdue the 
human will, renew the heart and quicken 
the moral nature of fallen men. He saw 



1balt:«1bour StuDiea at tbe Croee, 183 

in it a wisdom mightier that that of all 
the schools, in that it provided a method 
of effecting reconciliation between God 
and man, and securing grace and pardon 
for sinners without doing violence to 
the principles of the divine government. 
All this and more did the Apostle see 
in the cross of Christ. By prophetic 
vision he looked down the course of the 
centuries and saw nation after nation 
and people after people being subdued 
by its invincible power, enlightened by 
its heavenly wisdom, and so made partak- 
ers of the life and nature of God. He 
knew what it had done for him, and he 
believed that what it did for him it could 
do for all other men. No wonder he 
could exclaim out of the depths of his 
heart, '*God forbid that I should glory 
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ!" 

The Apostle sums up what the cross 
had accomplished for him in the phrase 
''through which the world hath been 
crucified unto me and I unto the world." 
This two-fold crucifixion effected by the 



184 1balts=1bout StuDies at tbe Qtoee. 

cross is the ground of the Apostle's 
glorying in it. What meaning are we to 
attach to the saying that the world was 
crucified unto Paul and he unto the 
world? The world, in this connection, 
must stand for the sensuous, fallen world, 
with its temptations, its allurements, 
and its sensual gratifications. All these 
were crucified to Paul by the cross of 
Christ, that is, they were put to death as 
relates to him. They had ceased to exert 
any controlling power over him. By 
means of the cross he had been so trans- 
formed in his nature that the world's 
glittering prizes of wealth, honor and 
the '' pleasures of sin " had ceased to be 
attractive to him. In the light thrown 
upon them by the cross of Christ, they 
were seen to be hollow, transient, deceit- 
ful and unsatisfying. The cross, too, 
had opened new sources of wealth, of 
joy, and of peace. These were so much 
superior to those offered by the world 
that the latter were said to be ''cruci- 
fied," or put to death; and just as the 
sordid and sensual pleasures of earth had 



1balts:lbout StuDles at tbe Qvoee. 185 

lost their attractiveness for him by means 
of the cross, so on the other hand he 
had been so much changed in his spirit, 
aspirations and desires that he was 
wholly unfitted for the enjoyments of 
these worldly pleasures. So there was 
a double crucifixion — the world was 
crucified unto him and he unto the worl'd . 
It is hard living a Christian life where 
this crucifixion has not taken place. 
When the allurements of the world pre- 
sent all their attractiveness to us, and 
we feel their power, it is exceedingly 
difficult to resist them, even when the 
conscience is enlightened to know that 
it is sinful to yield to their fascination. 
But when we come to realize the utter 
worthlessness and vanity of all these 
worldly prizes offered for the service of 
sin, it becomes an easy matter to turn 
away from them to that which is purer, 
higher and more satisfying. The secret 
of a joyful life is to be sought in this 
two-fold crucifixion of the world unto 
us and us unto the world. 

Sitting to-day once more in the pres- 



186 1balfs:lbour StuMea at tbe Qtoee* 

ence of these visible emblems which 
represent to us that which the cross 
represented to Paul, it may be helpful to 
ask our own souls the question whether 
we have been released by the power of 
the cross from our servitude to the world 
— from our love of its fascinating and 
empty pleasures, so that with singleness 
of heart we can pursue our Christian 
calling and find a higher source of happi- 
ness open to us by the cross of Christ. 
He who comes to the consciousness, in 
his own experience, of the superiority 
of the joys and blessings of the gospel 
to all the pleasures of sin, has attained 
unto full, spiritual freedom; and only 
such an one can exclaim, with the Apostle, 
"Far be it from me to glory, save in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through 
which the world has been crucified unto 
me and I unto the world." 



XXIX. 

THE SUPREME TEST OF DIS- 
CIPLESHIP. 

But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
of His.— Bom. 8: 9. 

ACCORDING to this inspired declaration 
there is a condition of true dis- 
cipleship of more vital importance than 
all creeds and ordinances. Whatever 
may be said, truthfully, as to the import- 
ance of a correct faith and of a proper 
obedience to the requirements of the 
Gospel, it is not inconceivable or impos- 
sible that one might be accepted of Christ, 
having an erroneous creed and without 
a perfect obedience to the formal com- 
mandments of Christ. But it is neither 
conceivable nor possible that one can be 
a disciple of Christ without having 
Christ's spirit. The Apostle declares 

this to be impossible, and we believe that 

(1870 



188 Ibalt^lbour StuDiee at tbe (lro66, 

all right-thinking Christians are pre- 
pared to accept the truth of the state- 
ment, not simply upon apostolic author- 
ity, but upon its manifest truthfulness. 
This is the one sine qua non of true dis- 
cipleship. 

What, then, it is important to ask, is 
the Spirit of Christ, without which we 
are none of His? If we understand the 
meaning to be that without the mind or 
disposition of Christ we are none of His, 
the conclusion would not be wrong, for 
certainly we cannot be Christ's in the 
highest sense, without having His mind 
and disposition. If He was meek and 
lowly in spirit, if He was tender and com- 
passionate, if He was willing to stoop 
from the highest station to the lowliest 
conditions of life in order to lift up the 
fallen, such a disposition should charac- 
terize all His disciples. If we are seeking 
for honor while He sought not the honor 
of men; if we are grasping for wealth 
when He, being rich, became poor for 
our sakes; if we are living for self 
and pleasing ourselves, while He lived for 



ibalt^fbour StuDtee at tbe Croee. 189 

others and pleased not Himself, on what 
ground, pray, can we claim to belong to 
Christ? In what sense does He own us? 
Alas, there are many hopes that are built 
on the sand ! 

But the connection in which this lan- 
guage occurs seems to teach that by the 
" Spirit of Christ " is meant the Holy 
Spirit. The first part of this same verse 
reads, " But ye are not in the flesh, but in 
the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you." It is probable if not 
certain that the phrases, '' Spirit of God " 
and the ''Spirit of Christ" are equiva- 
lents. This makes the gift of the Holy 
Spirit a very vital and essential matter. 
It was this same Apostle who asked cer- 
tain disciples at Corinth, " Have ye re- 
ceived the Holy Spirit since ye believed? " 
Since the possession of the Spirit is the 
supreme condition of discipleship, Paul's 
question was equivalent to asking them if 
they were disciples of Christ. We lay 
great stress on the importance of obeying 
the divine ordinances just as they were 
delivered unto us, and this is right, for the 



190 1balf*1bour StuDtes at tbe Cross* 

spirit of loyalty requires obedience to 
Christ even in outward forms. But are 
we not often neglectful about emphasiz- 
ing what is even more vital than the 
proper observance of ordinances, the 
possession of the Spirit of Christ? In 
so far as this may be true, we preach a 
mutilated Grospel. We should do the one 
and not neglect the other. No amount of 
zeal for a perfect obedience to ordinances 
can atone for the absence of the Holy 
Spirit from the believer's heart. He giv- 
eth His Holy Spirit to all them that obey 
Him from the heart. 

We may rest assured, however, that if 
we possess the Holy Spirit we will have 
the mind and disposition of Christ. Let 
no one imagine that he is possessed of the 
Holy Spirit, if he does not bring forth 
any of the fruit of the Spirit in his life; 
and the fruit of the Spirit is ''love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, 
faithfulness, meekness, temperance." He 
whose character is adorned with these 
graces, hath the mind of Christ as well as 
the Spirit of Christ. Why should we con- 



1balt=1bour StuDies at tbe Cro66. 191 

nect this thought of the Holy Spirit as the 
supreme test of discipleship with the 
cross of Christ, and with the Lord's 
Supper? Because it was ''through the 
eternal Spirit" that He '' offered Himself 
without blemish" unto God for our 
sakes. The highest proof Christ gave 
to the world that He possessed the 
Spirit without measure', was the willing 
sacrifice of Himself upon the cross for 
the world's redemption. This was the 
very sublimity of self-renunciation. Does 
it not follow that without the divine 
Spirit, shedding abroad in our hearts the 
love of God, and quickening into activity 
all the noblest impulses of our nature, we 
will not be able to present ourselves as 
''living sacrifices, holy and acceptable 
unto God, which is our reasonable ser- 
vice? " If this be the essential connec- 
tion between the possession of the Spirit 
and the offering of ourselves and all our 
possessions to the service of Christ, we 
might find a reason for thfe general lack of 
liberality for missionary and benevolent 
work, in the worldly-mindedness which so 



192 1&alts=1bour Studies at tbe Gross* 

prevails in the church and grieves away 
the Spirit of God. If so, the greatest 
lack of the church to-day is a greater ap- 
preciation of its need of the Spirit of 
God, and a more earnest seeking of His 
divine presence and power. Without 
His gracious aid we shall not be able to 
reach those sublime heights of unselfish- 
ness which characterized the apostles and 
martyrs of the first century. 

Notice, too, that to have the Holy 
Spirit in us is to have Christ, for immedi- 
ately following the text quoted above the 
Apostle adds: " And if Christ is in you 
the body is dead because of sin ; but the 
Spirit is life because of righteousness." 
This magnificent truth, that Christ fulfills 
the promise to be with His disciples in 
the gift of the Holy Spirit, is not appre- 
ciated at its true value. That Christ 
comes to the believer and dwells 
in him to carry on and perfect 
his salvation, and to impress His own di- 
vine image on the believing soul, is a fact 
that ought to thrill the souls of Christians 
with the deepest and holiest joy. Christ 



Dalt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Croee. 193 

in us the hope of glory is the acme of 
Christian privilege and hope. 

May it be that we shall connect more 
closely in our thought, hereafter, our ob- 
servance of the Lord's Supper, commem- 
orating Christ's offering for us, with our 
need of His Spirit by which we may 
gladly offer ourselves to the service of 
humanity. 
13 



XXX. 

. UNION OF THE DIVINE AND THE 

HUMAN. 

Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He 
also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that 
through death He might bring to nought him that had the 
power of deathj that is, the devil.— -BTed. 2: 14. 

Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and ex- 
ceeding great promises; that through these ye may become 
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the 
corruption that is in the world by lust.— 2 Peter 1: 4. 

TWO great facts are stated in these 
passages. It is difficult to say which 
is the greater. The first fact is that 
Christ became a partaker of our nature ; 
that the divine stooped down and united 
itself with the human. This is a marvel- 
ous fact, and one which proud reason, 
disdaining faith, refuses to accept. But 
the other fact is scarcely less marvelous. 
It is that man may become a partaker of 
the divine nature. These two facts con- 
stitute the two poles of the gospel.. They 

stand related to each other as cause and 

(194) 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbe Croee. 195 

effect. Christ was found in fashion as a 
man, that men might be fashioned into 
the divine. It is true that man was origin- 
ally created in the image of God as to his 
powers and capacities. But having 
sinned, the divine image was marred and 
defaced until but few traces of the divine 
were left in him. Christ came to restore 
the divine image in man. In order to do 
this it was necessary, says the inspired 
writer, to become a partaker of our na- 
ture. " Since then the children are 
sharers in flesh and blood. He also Him- 
self partook of the same." 

Here is a great spiritual law which 
must be observed by all who would suc- 
ceed in Christian work. We must come 
into actual contact and sympathy with 
those whom we would lift to a higher 
plane, and so identify ourselves with 
them in their interests that their burdens 
shall be our burdens, their sorrows our 
sorrows, their joys our joys. The failure 
to observe this law in many efforts at 
missionary work at home and abroad, is 
a cause of much of the failure that has 



196 1balt^1bour Studies at tbe Qvose. 

attended these efforts. When Jesus 
Christ saw the ruined condition of our 
race, and its great need of enlightenment 
and of redemption, He did not dispatch 
an angel with a message to our fallen 
world, but He came Himself, the first 
great Missionary, exchanging the '* form 
of God," for the ''form of a servant," 
that He might enter into the fullest sym- 
pathy with our sorrowing and suffering 
race, and thus lift it up into fellowship 
with God. There is no gospel without 
this great, sublime fact. Take the incar- 
nation out of the gospel, and the whole 
sublime story of the cross loses its charm, 
its significance, and its power. 

But while our minds are filled with 
wonder at the infinite condescension of 
Christ in identifying himself with our 
humanity, let us not lose sight of the fact 
that through this condescension He made 
it possible for man to rise above the cor- 
ruption that is in the world by lust, and 
to become a partaker of the divine na- 
ture. While we look upon these earthly 
symbols that tell us of a Savior that par- 



1balt:=1bour StuDiea at tbe Cro66» 197 

took of our flesh and blood, that He 
might, by means of death, destroy him that 
had the power of death, let us not forget 
that through the benefits of this death we 
are enabled to lay aside " all filthiness of 
the flesh and of the spirit," and take on 
the lineaments of the divine until we are 
transformed into the likeness of Jesus 
Christ. This is a daring thought of the 
Apostle Peter, but it is one declared also 
by other apostles who share with him the 
fullness of the illuminating Spirit. The 
beloved John says: " Now we are children 
of God, and it is not made manifest what 
we shall be. We know that if He shall 
be manifest, we shall be lil^e Him; for we 
shall see Him as He is." Here is the 
same great truth. As Christ partook of 
our human nature, so we are to become 
partakers of His divine nature. Even 
imagination, in its loftiest flight, cannot 
soar to any pinnacle of hope higher than 
that. How can the soul who believes 
such a truth ever allow itself to be drawn 
away from God by false attractions of 
sin? How often we lament our human 



198 Ibalt^lbour Studies at tbe Cross. 

weaknesses and imperfections! When 
we read the lives of apostles and martyrs, 
and heroic missionaries, and saintly men 
and women in all ages, who have walked 
with God until their faces shone with 
something of His divine glory, how our 
hearts have yearned to be as they were. 
But infinitely more than that is this 
promise of the gospel that we are to be 
partakers of the divine nature ; identified 
with Christ, so that His triumphs are our 
triumphs, and His glory our glory. 

By what means is it possible to bring 
men to this glorious destiny? What is 
the divine plan for weaning men from an 
inordinate affection for things earthly and 
temporal, and alluring them Godward un- 
til the human is transmuted into the di- 
vine? The Apostle Peter declares that it 
is through the ''precious and exceeding 
great promises" which Christ hath 
granted unto us that we are to become 
''partakers of the divine nature." Noth- 
ing can be more inspiring than a great 
promise made by one whose word has 
never failed, and who has power to per- 



IfDalts^lbour StuDies at tbc Grose* 199 

form whatever He promises to do. Think 
of the promises which Christ has made to 
His followers which are scattered all 
through the pages of the New Testament! 
There is the promise of forgiveness; of 
the Holy Spirit as a Guest and Com- 
forter; of divine love and companion- 
ship; of daily supplies of grace and 
strength; of triumph over all our weak- 
nesses; of resurrection from the dead; of 
glorified bodies, fashioned like unto the 
glorious body of Christ. Then there is 
the promise of the Father's House, with 
its many mansions; of the place prepared 
for us by the hand of our Savior, and the 
joy of being with Him and seeing His 
glory, and of sharing it with Him. Final- 
ly, there is the promise of a fadeless in- 
heritance in a land where sin's blighting 
effects are unknown, and where there is 
no more sorrow, neither crying, nor pain, 
nor death, for evermore, but God shall be 
with us and be our God, and we shall be 
His people. Are not these exceeding 
great and precious promises? Is it possi- 
ble to exaggerate their value? Do we be- 



200 l&alt=1bour StuDiea at tbe Cross* 

lieve theoi? Are we, who sit here in 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, before 
these visible emblems of Christ's body 
and blood, to sit yonder in the heavens at 
the great banquet supper — the marriage 
supper of the Lamb — with the redeemed 
and glorified out of every nation, and 
tribe, and tongue? If we believe that, 
how easy it ought to be for us to go forth 
from this place to-day to live for Christ, 
to follow in His lowly footsteps, going 
about doing good, descending into the 
homes of poverty and even of crime, that 
we might lift up those who are our 
brothers and our sisters, created in the 
image of God, to make them sharers with 
us in so glorious a destiny! Not in vain 
do we commemorate this ordinance, in 
which are mingled the human and the 
divine, if by means of it we may the bet- 
ter prepare ourselves and others to be 
"partakers of the divine nature." When 
Christ shall be ''formed in us the hope 
of glory,'' then the great end of the gos- 
pel will have been realized, and God and 
man shall be united forever. 



XXXI. 
CHRIST THE FATHER'S MAGNET. 

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto myself .—Jo /in 12: 32. 

THERE are moments in all our lives 
when there come to us clear visions 
of the meaning of our lives. It 
was such a moment as this in the life of 
our Lord when He uttered these remark- 
able words. The Bible student will re- 
member that it was in connection with 
the visit of the Greeks who had request- 
ed to see Him. The visit of these repre- 
sentatives from the classic land of song 
and art suggested to Him, what was hid- 
den from His disciples at that time, that 
His mission included the whole world in 
its beneficent scope. In connection with 
this wide reach of the divine philanthropy 
there came the thought that this world- 
wide mission was not to l)e accomplished 
(201) 



202 t)alt=Toour StuDies at tbe (Sxobb. 

except through His death. It was out of 
a heart filled with these emotions that he 
exclaimed, " And I, if I be lifted up from 
the earth, will draw all men unto myself." 
It is as if He had said, ''Not only the 
Greeks but men out of every nation, and 
tribe, and tongue, not only of this age 
but of all succeeding ages, are to come to 
me, but they can only come as they are 
drawn by divine power. I cannot draw 
them except through my death in their 
behalf, and therefore I am willing to be 
lifted up that the world may be drawn 
unto me." 

Let us reverently ponder these words 
of the Master. They seem to unveil to 
us not only His heart of infinite love, but 
the profound thought that underlies the 
divine tragedy of the cross. Let us no- 
tice, first, that Christ recognized the fact 
that the world is away from Grod, and, 
therefore, without life and true happi- 
ness. This is inevitably so, because man 
was made for God, and all the great pow- 
ers and capacities of the soul demand 
God in order to satisfy them. Union 



1F3alt=1[3our StuDle^ at tbe Cro66. 203 

with God is man's normal relation. Sin 
and rebellion are abnormal and destruc- 
tive of the end for which man was 
created. It was the recognition of this 
fact that brought Christ to the earth. 
Man must be brought back to God in 
order that he may have life and that more 
abundantly. 

Notice again that this union of man 
with God is to be brought about by moral 
force. He does not say, ''I will drive all 
men to God, or compel them by force to 
follow me, but I will draw all men unto 
myself." In another passage he had said, 
''No man can come to me except the 
Father which hath sent me draw him." 
He now explains how that drawing is to 
be accomplished. He is the chosen in- 
strument, the divine magnet, which the 
Father has let down into the world to 
draw all men unto Himself. Union with 
God is effected in Christ. He is the 
meeting-place of God and man. God 
was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself. Let us understand, then, once 
for all, that God appeals to man's highest 



204 1balt=1bout StuDtea at tbe Croea. 

and best nature in the gospel, and seeks 
to win man, by the divine beauty and 
moral power of Christ, to come unto 
Him. 

This moral power which God has or- 
dained to draw men unto Himself is love, 
the mightiest force in the universe. 
There is no higher exhibition of love 
than the laying down of one's life for 
those loved. '^Grod so loved the world 
that he gave his only begotten Son," and 
Christ so loved the world that He gave 
Himself for us. The gospel is the power 
of God, but Christ's death is the power 
of the gospel. The reason why the death 
of Christ is so potent a force for the 
world's conversion is, that it is the high- 
est exhibition of divine love for a sinning 
and dying race. In the light of this 
truth when this vision of universal con- 
quest came before the mind of Christ, 
He saw that it was not to be realized 
through the ordinary force which the 
world's great conquerors had used, but by 
a very different power and for a very dif- 
ferent purpose. Love must take the 



lbalt^1bout StuDies at tbe Croee. 205 

place of the sword, and life, not death, is 
the end to be gained. 

Let us consider again what a compli- 
ment to our human nature is implied in 
this statement of Jesus. It discredits 
and disproves every doctrine or dogma 
that teaches that man is so utterly de- 
praved as to be incapable of being influ- 
enced by a noble thought or an unselfish 
act. On the contrary, so far from man's 
being wholly destitute of any power that 
can respond to love, Christ says, in effect, 
''I know men; I have lived among them; 
I know their frailties, their sins, their 
moral depravity; but I know, too, that 
there slumbers in every human heart an 
element of the divine which will respond 
to the touch of divine love, and I, when 
I am lifted up, upon the cross, so that the 
world may see how I loved them, and how 
God loves them, will draw all men unto 
myself. They will resist force or parry 
argument with argument, but they will 
not always resist love, and I will draw 
them to me by the cords of love." Is it 
in any human heart to disappoint this 



206 f3alt^t)our StuDiee at tbe Ct066» 

expectation of Christ, or postpone its 
fulfillment? Has He over-estimated our 
human nature in prophesying that His 
death would be the means of drawing all 
men unto Him ? As a matter of fact men 
do resist this highest appeal of love, and 
refuse to come to Christ, but they do so 
in direct opposition to the better impulses 
of their own nature, and in violation of 
their own highest ideals of what is right 
and true and noble. Man can resist 
omnipotence if he chooses so to do, but 
in resisting the drawings of an infinite 
love he does violence to His own nature 
as well as to that of God. 

Finally, let us pause a moment here be- 
fore the cross to ask ourselves, reverently, 
what is the secret of this mysterious 
drawing power of the uplifted Christ. 
Attraction and gravitation are names for 
a force that pervades the universe and 
holds in balance all worlds, and yet who 
understands it? Why should one body 
attract another? Why does the mysteri- 
ous magnet when brought into proximity 
to iron or steel, draw them unto itself, 



1balts:lbouc StuDies at tbe (Iro66. 207 

causing them to leap from their places of 
repose, through space, and adhere to it? 
We do not know. Science can only tell 
us that the magnet is a positive force and 
that the substances drawn to it are nega- 
tive, and that there is an attraction be- 
tween the positive and the negative. 
That is to say, there is something in the 
magnet for which the iron and the steel 
have an affinity, and they are drawn to it. 
There is in the one what is lacking in the 
other, and the union supplies this need. 
Herein, no doubt, lies the explanation of 
the drawing power of Christ. There is 
in Him, uplifted, crucified and dying for 
the world, that which men reverence, ad- 
mire, need. The riches of Christ's char- 
acter are an attraction for our spiritual 
poverty. The wealth of His divine love 
and grace appeals mightily to our sense 
of guilt and need of pardon. The infin- 
ite life that abounds in Him is a mighty 
attractive power for a dying world. All 
the elements of grace and truth which 
the human heart in its best moments feels 
that it needs, are furnished in Christ; and 



208 Ibaltssfbour StuDies at tbe Gross. 

so we are drawn to Him by the positive 
force of his glorious personality, and the 
negative power of our own necessities. 
The marvel is that the whole world, 
whithersoever the gospel has gone, has 
not been drawn into His loving embrace. 
Let us not leave this sacred place, nor 
close our eyes to this vision of the cross, 
until we inwardly resolve to yield our- 
selves more wholly to the tender drawings 
of His infinite love, until we shall find in 
Him that fullness of life and perfection 
of character which our hearts crave. 



XXXII. 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion 
of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not 
a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who 
are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of 
the one bread.— 1 Cor. 10; 16, 17. 

THE apostle is here warning the breth- 
ren at Corinth against the sin of 
idolatry. He had just cited some 
facts in the history of Israel, showing the 
terrible results of their apostasy from 
God during their journeying in the wil- 
derness. Applying the lesson to those to 
whom he has written, he urged them in 
the tender phrase of ''my beloved" to 
''flee from idolatry." Strange that 
Christians, even at that age, should need 
such a warning; and yet the Apostle John 
also says, "Little children, keep 3'our- 
selves from idols." 

It is not at all improbable that the 

church of to-day stands in need of the 

14 ( 209 ) 



210 tyalUToom StuMee at tbe (Sxoee. 

same warning. True, there is little dan- 
ger that in our enlightened age and coun- 
try men v/ill pay homage to the mythical 
deities of the heathen world; but idola- 
try, in its essence, is giving to anything or 
to any being the homage and obedience 
due only to God. In this sense it is not 
difficult to see that the Christians of our 
day are in as much danger of idolatry as 
those of any past age. There may be the 
idol of creeds, of certain forms of eccle- 
siasticism, of denominational fealty, of 
worldly ambition, of love of gain, or of 
the pleasures of this world. It is easy 
for Christians to allow themselves to 
drift unconsciously under the control of 
any one of these absorbing passions to 
such a degree as to practically dethrone 
God. What is this but idolatry? 

But we pass from the danger of idola- 
try to the argument which the apostle 
makes in the foregoing passage against 
it. He reminds the Corinthian brethren 
that ''the cup of blessing which we bless" 
is ''a communion of the blood of Christ," 
and that '' the bread which we break 



1I)alt=:1bour Studies at tbe CtO90. 211 

is a communion of the body of Christ." 
This word communion (Jcoinonia) means 
more than participation or communica- 
tion. It means fellowship — the common 
sharing of the blessings of Christ and as- 
sociation with Him, and with one anoth- 
er. The bread and wine are the media 
through which this communion is en- 
joyed. Through this divine institution, 
the Apostle declares that we have fellow- 
ship with one another and jointly with 
the Lord Jesus Christ. How inconsist- 
ent, then, for those who have entered 
into this close partnership with Jesus 
Christ, |to be idolaters and defile them- 
selves with the cup of demons ! Is it any 
less inconsistent for Christians of our 
day to profess by their participation in 
this institution their close and intimate 
communion with Christ, and then be ab- 
sorbed in pursuits and ambitions that are 
wholly worldly, at war with the Spirit? 
If the Apostle Paul could use the spirit- 
ual meaning of this ordinance as a com- 
munion with Christ, to show his brethren 
the incongruity of their idolatrous prac- 



212 f^alt^fbour StuDies at tbe Croea. 

tices with such communion, may we not 
with equal force use it in the same way to 
point out to the Christians of our day 
the importance of abstaining from all 
unholy companionships and fellowships 
which will tend to weaken and destroy 
their allegiance to God, and interrupt 
their fellowship with their brethren? 

Consider for a moment, beloved, the 
high privilege conferred upon us in being 
permitted to come to this table of the 
Lord. If it be a great privilege and 
honor to be associated with the great 
men of earth, who fill positions of high 
trust and responsibility, and whose names 
are emblazoned on the pages of his- 
tory, how much greater the honor, how 
much more sacred the privilege, of " sit- 
ting together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus," and of entering into communion, 
not only with the purest and noblest souls 
of all the ages, but with God the Father, 
with Jesus Christ his Son, and with the 
Holy Spirit! This is, indeed, a high and 
holy fellowship. It is difficult for us to 
realize it. Our eyes are so holden, and 



1balts=1bour StuDiee at tbe Grose, 213 

our vision so obscured by worldly objects, 
that it is with diflS.culty we can realize 
that through these simple, visible em- 
blems we are really brought into com- 
munion with the whole body of Christ, 
and with Christ Himself, exalted and 
glorified, but always present with His as- 
sembled church. A realization of this 
fact would prevent many of us from as- 
sociating with evil companions, and of 
engaging in practices and amusements 
which we know to be inconsistent with 
such a high and holy relation. 

Let us note, also, the argument which 
Paul makes for unity in this passage. 
*' We who are many," he says, *' are one 
body, one bread; for we all partake of 
the one bread." The marginal reading 
in the Eevised Version seems to us clear- 
er: " Seeing that there is one bread, we 
who are many are one body." Just as 
the bread is one in its nature, substance 
and meaning, though broken into many 
pieces, "so we being many members are 
one body." The fact that the bread is 
one and that through this one bread we 



214 IbalUfoom Studies at tbe Qxoee. 

all enter into communion with the same 
Christ, argues the unity of the members 
of Christ's body, which is His church. 
The association is very close here, in the 
Apostle's thought, between fellowship 
with Christ and fellowship with one an- 
other; or between union with Christ and 
union with one another. This close con- 
nection obtains everywhere in the New 
Testament. The apostle John declares 
that ''if we walk in the light as He is in 
the light, we have fellowship one with 
another, and the blood of Jesus his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7.) 
Not by walking in darkness or in paths of 
disobedience can we have fellowship one 
with another, but only as we walk in the 
light of Christ and receive cleansing from 
all sin, can we enter into this twofold fel- 
lowship with God and with one another. 
Our divisions occur, not in the realm of 
the spiritual, but in that of the carnal. 
Beloved, let us remember that our fellow- 
ship with one another is based on our fel- 
lowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let 
these solemn symbols of Christ's body 



Ibalt^lbour StuDiee at tbe (Sxoee. 315 

and blood, through which we enter into 
communion with Him and with one an- 
other, remind us of the sacredness and 
closeness of our fellowship with God, 
and of our communion together in His 
Son. Let us realize and enjoy the com- 
munion of saints, growing out of our com- 
munion with the Lord Jesus Christ. And 
may the remembrance of these high and 
holy relationships keep us near to God 
and close to each other until we enter at 
last into the perfect fellowship of the 
saints in light ! 



XXXIII. 
LIVING UNTO GOD. 

But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also 
live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the 
dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. 
For the death that he died, he died unto sin once; but the 
life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye 
also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in 
Christ Jesus.— i2om. 6:8-11. 

THE chapter of which this passage is a 
part is an argument against the legal- 
istic objection of the Jews to the doc- 
trine of grace, that it encourages a con- 
tinuance in sin to the end that grace may 
abound. The Apostle shows that this is 
an impossibility, that the very nature of 
the grace conferred on men through Jesus 
Christ our Lord, and its results, forbid 
any such conclusion. He asks the ques- 
tion, ''We who die to sin, how shall we 
any longer live therein? " If the effect 
of Christ's death on the believer is to 

produce death to sin, as the doctrine of 

(216) 



1balt==1[3our Studies at tbe Cro66. 217 

Christ teaches, how can it be alleged as 
an objection to such doctrine that those 
who have thus died may continue in sin? 
This leads the Apostle to refer to the be- 
liever's baptism into the death of Christ, 
whereby he was buried with Him through 
baptism into death: ''that like as Christ 
was raised from the dead through the 
glory of the Father, so we also might 
walk in newness of life." This " new- 
ness of life " is in contrast with continu- 
ing in sin. The former and not the lat- 
ter, he argues, must be the result of our 
death with Christ. Throughout this 
chapter sin is conceived of as a master, 
exercising dominion over men. But 
Christ, who Himself was sinless, died be- 
cause of sin that He might destroy the 
dominion of sin over the lives of men. 
Those who believe in Christ, in His divine 
mission and in His sinless life, and who 
accept His sacrificial death as the means 
of deliverance from sin, are regarded as 
having died with Christ, and as having 
risen with Him, sharing His triumph over 
sin and His "newness of life." But this 



218 1balt:s1bour StuDies at tbe Croae* 

death of Christ was once for all. Death 
has no more dominion over Him. He 
now liveth forevermore "and the life 
that He liveth, He liveth unto God," 
freed from the restraints and hindrances 
of sin. The important conclusion which 
the apostle deduces from these facts is 
stated as follows: ''Even so reckon ye 
also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but 
alive unto God in Christ Jesus." 

There is a great deal in the way we re- 
gard our relations in life. It may almost 
be said that the differences in character 
among men are the result of the different 
ways in which they conceive of their rela- 
tions to God, to one another and to 
human life. A Christian man, according 
to Paul, should reckon himself to be dead 
unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ 
Jesus. He should conceive of himself as 
having been freed from the tyrannous 
master — sin — and as sustaining an atti- 
tude of independence toward it. This 
way of looking upon his relation to sin 
will have a powerful effect upon his life. 
He will not forget the fact that he has 



1balt:=1boiir StuDies at tbe drees. 219 

been rescued from his former bondage to 
sin through the grace of Christ Jesus, 
upon whom he must continue to rely for 
strength to maintain his freedom. As a 
slave who has been made free would hard- 
ly think of returning to his life of bitter 
bondage and voluntarily putting himself 
in subjection to his former master, so the 
apostle conceives it would be utterly in- 
consistent for the believer, who by the 
grace of Christ has been freed from the 
bondage of sin, to return again to his 
former bondage by yielding subjection to 
his old master and continuing the life of 
sin. 

But it is not enongh for the Christian to 
be dead unto sin, that is, separated from 
it and refusing to serve it longer as a 
master. The Christian life is more than 
a negation. It is not enough to "abhor 
that which is evil; " we must also " cleave 
to that which is good." So the positive 
side of our Christian relationship is that 
we live unto God. We have left a cruel, 
unjust and tyrannical master in forsaking 
sin, but we have also entered into the ser- 



220 1balU1bo\xt StuDiea at tbe Qvobb. 

vice of another Master who is gracious 
and merciful, and whose whole purpose in 
calling us to His service is to make us 
free and to develop within us all that is 
noblest and purest and best, that we may 
realize the end for which we were created ! 
We are, indeed, free, but not free from 
the necessity of service, of conflict and of 
constant effort in behalf of the right and 
the true and the good. We are free from 
sin, but we are the servants of Grod. As 
we have heretofore, while in the service 
of sin, yielded our members readily as in- 
struments of unrighteousness, so now, the 
apostle argues, having chosen a new mas- 
ter, we should yield our members — hands, 
feet, eyes, ears, minds, hearts, conscience 
and wills — as instruments of righteous- 
ness. If we did the former readily when 
the end was death, how much more will- 
ingly should we do the latter when the end 
thereof is everlasting life ! 

What is it to live unto God? It is very 
much more than many of us have con- 
ceived. We can only live in the true 
sense of the word as we are brought into 



1balts=1bour StuDtes at tbe Cro60» 221 

right relations with God. Life is union 
with God. Death is separation from Him. 
The end of all true education, of all re- 
ligious faith, of all church life, is to bring 
the soul into union with God. That is 
life. But to be in union with God — what 
is that? It is to live as God would have 
us live. It is to do His will and not our 
own. It is to obey His laws as they are 
written, not simply on the pages of reve- 
lation in the inspired Volume, but as they 
are manifest in our own nature and in all 
the material world. Science is now giv- 
ing prominence to a truth which the Bible 
has long taught us — the immanence of 
God in nature. We are learning now to 
think of God, not as existing far away in 
some remote part of the universe, outside 
of the world He has created and set go- 
ing, but as in the world, manifesting His 
presence, His power and His providence 
in the ceaseless ongoing of all the pro- 
cesses of nature, and of history, and in 
the experiences of human life. In every 
flower that opens its tiny petals to the 
sun-light, in every bursting seed, in every 



222 Dalts=1bour StuMee at tbe QtoBS. 

cloud that pours down its showers of 
blessing, in rising and setting suns, in the 
changing seasons of the year, in birth and 
in death — in all these things God is 
speaking to us and manifesting His pres- 
ence and His power. But especially in 
the deep recesses of our own souls, in the 
voice of conscience approving or rebuking 
us, does God manifest His will snd seek 
to lead us in the way of righteousness. 
To live unto God, fully, is to bring our 
whole nature, mind, heart and body, into 
subjection to the will of God as it mani- 
fests itself in all the ways we have men- 
tioned. 

It was this sublime mission that brought 
Jesus Christ into the world. He came 
that we might have life and that we might 
have it more abundantly. To this end He 
showed us how to live; to this end He 
died the cruel death of the cross that 
He might thereby break the chains of our 
slavery and deliver us from the bondage 
of sin and make us God's free men. It is 
this fact that gives significance to this 
ordinance which we here commemorate. 



1balt=1bour Studies at tbe Grose. 223 

These simple elements speak to our 
hearts in the silent language of symbol- 
ism, calling us away from the service of 
sin, reminding us that, having been freed 
from the bondage of sin, we are hence- 
forth to live unto God, and not unto sin, 
or unto self. O, that we might have the 
wisdom to-day to receive this lesson and to 
go forth from this place resolved to bring 
our w^hole being into more complete har- 
mony with the will of God than we have 
ever done, that our lives may be truer, 
fuller and richer, and hence a greater 
blessing to mankind ! 



XXXIV. 

EXPEDIENCY OF CHRIST'S DEPAR- 
TURE. 

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you 
that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not 
come unto you; but if I go I will send Him unto you.— 
John 16: 7. 

THE hearts of the disciples had been 
filled with grief at Christ's men- 
tion of His departure. For more than 
three years they had shared His inti- 
mate companionship. They had listen- 
ed to His marvelous words and had wit- 
nessed His wonderful works. They had 
seen him in hours of temptation, weari- 
ness, hunger and sorrow. Some of them 
had been permitted to behold Him in the 
glory of His transfiguration. They had 
come to look upon Him as their wisest, 
strongest and truest friend. He had 
given them thoughts of God, of man, 
of duty, and of destiny, that the world 
had not before received. They had 

( 224 ) 



IfDalt^tbour StuDiee at tbe Cvob6. 225 

learned to love Him tenderly, although 
they were not able to comprehend fully 
either His person or His mission. It 
was impossible for them to realize that 
it was through humiliation, suffering and 
death that Christ was to establish His 
kingdom and fulfill his great mission in 
the world. When, therefore, as the time 
drew near when He was to offer Himself 
for the sins of the world. He told them 
plainly that He was about to leave them, 
and they would see him no more, no 
wonder their hearts were filled with sor- 
row. Their eyes were too dim with tears 
to see the reasons for His leaving them. 
They had fondly hoped to spend all their 
lives in the sunshine of His presence, and 
to feast their souls on His divine coun- 
sel. But now they are told that in a 
little while they shall see Him no more, 
and He added what must have sounded 
very strange to them — that it was expe- 
dient that He should go away — that it 
was best for them. 

How well this incident falls in with 
our own experiences in life! We, too, 



226 lbalts=lbout StuDie0 at tbe Cross* 

have stood in the presence of what seem- 
ed to us a great calamity, and when our 
faith in God's providence has whispered 
to us, **It is needful for you," our 
hearts have been sorrowful and puzzled 
to understand God's ways with us as 
much as were these early disciples to 
understand Christ's plan for redeeming 
the world. We, too, are ''little chil- 
dren," as Christ affectionately terms His 
disciples, and are not able to understand 
the wisdom of all our Father does. May 
these words of the Master teaeh us to 
submit unquestioningly to His provi- 
dences, not doubting that they are expe-. 
dient for us, being intended for our good. 
After awhile, when life's mists shall 
have all cleared away, and the light of 
eternity shall have illuminated all the 
dark problems that perplex us here, no 
doubt we shall see and realize that these 
bitter experiences of life which we can- 
not now understand, were, indeed, ex- 
pedient for us. 

What are we to understand by this 
going away of Jesus? In the light of 



lbair=1bour StuDies at tbe Groee. 227 

facts we can see what it meant to Christ : 
that it was expedient that He should 
die upon the cross for the sins of men, 
that He should be buried, that He should 
rise again the third day, and that He 
should ascend to His Father and to our 
Father. This was the way in which He 
was to go. It was not His to be trans- 
ported, like Elijah the Tishbite, from 
the banks of the Jordan in a chariot of 
fire, without having tasted the bitterness 
of death. It was His, rather, to tread 
the via dolorosa^ and by means of cruci- 
fixion enter the shadows of death, and to 
pass through the sepulchre on His way 
to glory. All this was involved in 
Christ's departure from His disciples. 
The only reason assigned here by Jesus 
why it was expedient that He should go 
away is, '' If I go not away the Comfort- 
er will not come unto you ; but if I go I 
will send Him unto you." It is not 
strange if His disciples failed to under- 
stand the meaning of these words. It 
may be doubted whether after the lapse 
of nearly 2,000 years we are able to 



228 1balt=1bour StuDiea at tbe Ctoee. 

sound the depths of their profound 
meaning. We know now in the light of 
that marvelous history which immediately 
followed the ascension, how essential 
was the coming of the Advocate. His 
presence on the Pentecost following the 
resurrection marks the birth of the or- 
ganized church in the world. It was by 
the power of the Holy Spirit that these 
disciples of Jesus were empowered to 
proclaim Christ to the world and to ex- 
plain His divine presence and mission. 
It was by the power of the Spirit that 
they were enabled to overcome all their 
previous fears and doubts, to defy dan- 
gers of every kind, and even death itself, 
in their earnest efforts to extend the 
kingdom of God. It was this Comforter, 
the Holy Spirit, that transformed this 
band of timid, hesitating and doubting dis- 
ciples into an organized, courageous and 
victorious church. Jesus had promised 
His disciples before He went away that 
He would not leave them orphans, but 
that He would be with them to comfort, 
guide and strengthen them. This prom- 



ibaIt^1bour StuDies at tbe (Iro60» 229 

ise is fulfilled in the mission of the Holy 
Spirit, who came to the disciples as the 
result of Christ's going to the Father. 
No doubt the disciples came to under- 
stand fully why it was expedient that 
Christ should go away, and that through 
His going was made possible His abiding 
presence in the church forever through 
the Holy Spirit. 

We need not pause here, in this medi- 
tation, to philosophize on the connection 
which existed between the going away of 
Christ and the sending of the Holy 
Spirit. It is not difficult to see, how- 
ever, that the work to be accomplished 
upon the disciples themselves by the 
death and resurrection of Christ, and 
by His ascension to the Father, was es- 
sential to prepare them for the reception 
of the Holy Spirit, by the increase of 
their faith, through which alone the gift 
of the Spirit is made possible. What is 
more important to us is the fact itself 
that Christ's death for us and His ascen- 
sion to the right hand of God made 
possible for all of us the priceless and 



230 1balt5=1bour StuDies at tbe Grose. 

immeasurable gift of the Holy Spirits 
Not to the apostles alone nor to the 
church of the first century was this 
promise given, but ''unto you and to 
your children and to all that are afar 
off." While it is true, no doubt, that 
there was given to the apostles and to 
others of the early church a special 
measure of the Holy Spirit to fit them 
for their special tasks and responsibili- 
ties, the principle remains that, accord- 
ing to ^our tasks and responsibilities and 
the measure of our faith, will the Spirit 
be given unto us. This fact is of supreme 
value, and must not be lost sight of if 
we are to make any worthy progress in 
Christian life. Dearly beloved, we see 
before us to-day in these emblems of 
Christ's body and blood, not only the 
memorial of a great fact — Christ's death 
for the sins of the world — but a remind- 
er also of a great promise — '' I will send 
you the Comforter." Let us associate 
this fact and this promise together in 
our minds. While we remember to-day 
with deep and tender gratitude the fact 



1balt=1bour Studies at tbe Croes. 231 

that Christ loved us and gave Himself 
for us, let us not forget His sweet and 
precious promise that during the time 
of his bodily absence He v^ould send 
the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to be with 
us and abide in us, and may we seek 
His gracious aid and divine guidance as 
we strive to present Christ to the world 
in our conduct and character. 



XXXV. 
FROM WEALTH TO POVERTY. 

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that 
ye through his poverty might become rich.— 2 Cor. 8: 9. 

THE Apostle in this chapter and the 
one succeeding it is urging upon 
the church at Corinth the importance of 
making a contribution in connection with 
the churches of Macedonia for the relief 
of the poor saints in Judea. In present- 
ing the motives for this liberality, Paul 
refers to the ''grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ " who, being rich, for '' our sakes" 
became poor that we " through his pov- 
erty might become rich." It would be 
impossible to conceive of a higher motive 
for the grace of liberalty than the one 
here mentioned. In this brief passage 
is condensed the great message of the 
gospel. Whoever receives into his heart 

the sublime fact here stated, and the 

(232) 



Ibalts^fbour StuOies at tbe Qxoee. 233 

motive which lay behind the fact, has 
received the marrow and fatness of the 
gospel. Let us reverently contemplate 
some of the heights and depths of its 
it meaning. 

The reference to our Lord Jesus Christ 
as having been ''rich" points, of course, 
to that period, prior to the incarnation, 
when Christ existed in the ''form of 
Grod." It is well to note the fact, in 
passing, that Paul, then, no less than 
John, believed and taught the pre-exist- 
ence of Christ. The assumption of our 
nature was the beginning of His poverty. 
He was "rich" prior to that event, and 
in that far-off period referred to by John 
when he said, "In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God." He was rich, 
therefore, in immediate association with 
God, and in all the wealth of omnipo- 
tence, for He Himself was divine. He 
was rich in creative power and wisdom, 
for "all things were made by Him, and 
without Him was not anything made that 
hath been made." He was ricli in life, 



234 1balt=1bour Studies at tbe Qtoes. 

for ''in Him was life and the life was 
the light of men." He was rich in glory, 
for He was ''in the form of God," and 
thought it not a prize to be seized to be 
on an equality with God. In his great 
intercessory prayer, recorded in the 17th 
chapter of John, He prays: " And now, 
O Father, glorify thou me with thine 
own self, with the glory which I had 
with thee before the world was." On 
the eve of His return to the Father He 
only asked that He might be reinvested 
with that glory which He had with Him 
before the world was. He was therefore, 
rich in glory. He was likewise rich in 
the homage which He received from all 
celestial intelligences, for it is said of 
Him in the first chapter of Hebrews, 
"And let all the angels of God worship 
Him." Think of the dignity, and ma- 
jesty, and glory, and the divinity of a 
being before whom the magnificent in- 
telligences of the celestial world, includ- 
ing Gabriel, and Michael, and all the 
angels of light would bow in adoring 
homage, casting their crowns at His 



1balt^1bour StuDiea at tbe Cross. 235 

feet! Think of the wealth of association 
that was His in all the circumstances of 
His heavenly glory prior to the incarna- 
tion! Eye hath not seen, ear hath not 
heard, nor has the heart conceived the 
glory and splendor of that heavenly 
world; but all this unspeakable glory, 
and splendor, and beauty belonged to 
Christ by virtue of His divine nature. 
Truly was He ^'rich." 

But from all this heavenly wealth, this 
personal glory and splendor. He turned 
away, thinking them not prizes to be 
seized and held, but rather to be gladly 
surrendered if thereby He might redeem 
a lost world. '' For our sakes He became 
poor." ''The Word became flesh and 
dwelt among us." From the heights of 
w^ealth He stepped down to the depths of 
poverty. From the " form of God" He 
stooped down and took the "form of a 
servant." What condescension was 
that! This same Apostle declares, in 
another place, that "He emptied him- 
self" in order that He might make this 
descent to the earth, and take upon Him 



236 1balt^1bout StuDiee at tbe Qtose. 

our nature. In assuming a human body 
it became necessary for Him to lay aside 
the divine glory and become subject to 
the conditions of our common human 
life. Nor was this a transitory visit, such 
as angels had frequently made to this 
earth when dispatched from heaven with 
some message to patriarch, prophet or 
seer; but He " dwelt among us." He 
assumed our nature and. walked arm in 
arm with our humanity, sharing our bur- 
den of poverty, of sorrow and of grief. 
If He had been born in the palace of the 
Caesars, and heir-apparent to the throne 
of the Roman Empii-e, that would 
have been infinite condescension. But 
He was to illustrate a new order of 
royalty, and He passed by the palace of 
Csesar to be the son of a carpenter. 
Neither was He born in the home of the 
rich, for He was to demonstrate to all 
the generations of men that earthly riches 
were not essential to the attainment of 
the loftiest aims of human life. On the 
contrary He was born in a stable, cradled 
in a manger, and reared in a home of 



Ibalts^lbour StuDies at tbe Cro96. 237 

poverty, that He might enter into fullest 
sympathy with the lowliest conditions of 
human life. In that humble home at 
Nazareth He learned the carpenter's 
trade, and toiled with His hands that 
He might show to all men the dignity of 
labor, and the honor attaching to honest 
toil. Those years of obscurity and toil 
down at Nazareth are freighted with 
lessons of encouragement and of inspira- 
tion for the great toiling masses of 
humanity, who in every age have been 
called on to fulfill that primal law that 
'' in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
thy bread." 

When Jesus left the humble life at 
Nazareth to enter upon His public min- 
istry His life was still one of proverty. 
On one occasion He said to one who 
had manifested a desire to go home with 
Him, ''The birds of the air have nests 
and the foxes have their dens in these 
mountains, but the Son of man hath not 
where to lay His head." Having refused 
at the hands of Satan the kingdoms, 
thrones, wealth, and glory of this world. 



238 1balt=1[Dour ©tuDie^ at tbe Grosa, 

He was a homeless man, owning not one 
foot of the earth upon which He trod. 
Nor was this His deepest poverty. The 
Apostle, speaking of His condescension, 
says, ^'He made himself of no reputa- 
tion." The cause He came to plead was 
so unpopular; the kingdom He came to 
establish was so out of harmony with 
the conceptions of the religious teachers 
of His age; the principles of universal 
charity which He taught so antagonized 
the bigotry and narrowness of scribe and 
Pharisee, that His name was cast out a?s 
evil, and He was " despised and rejected 
of men." '' He came unto His own, and 
His own received Him not." Even the 
few disciples that He had gathered about 
Him, and who had learned to love Him, 
though they did not understand Him 
fully, in the hour of His betrayal for- 
sook Him, and He was left to tread the 
wine-press alone. O! this is poverty, in 
comparison with which the loss of worldly 
possessions is not to be mentioned. The 
darkest hour in anj^ man's life is when 
his friends forsake him and he finds him- 



1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Gross, 239 

self alone in the world. O! the loneliness 
which must have oppressed the heart of 
the Son of God on that awful night of 
the betrayal, when His disciples forsook 
Him and He was led by His enemies be- 
fore the Sanhedrim, and on the following 
day to the bar of Pilate! Think of the 
buffeting, the insults of the cruel mob, 
the spitting on His face, the mock robe, 
the scepter, the crown of thorns, and all 
the indignities that were heaped upon 
the innocent Sufferer, and compare it 
with the glory He had with the Father, 
and the homage and worship which He 
received from angels and archangels in 
the heavenly world, and you will under- 
stand something of what is meant by His 
making Himself of no reputation. 

There are other ingredients that enter- 
ed into Christ's cup of poverty, but 
these, with the results of His poverty, 
must constitute the theme of another 
study. Meanwhile let us ponder well 
the significance of these wonderful facts. 



XXXVI. 
CHRIST'S POVERTY OUR WEALTH. 

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 
though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that 
ye through his poverty might become rich. — 2 Cor. 8:9. 

IN OUR previous study we spoke of the 
riches of Christ in His heavenly estate, 
and of His subsequent poverty. As ele- 
ments of that poverty we mentioned His 
incarnation, His subjection to the condi- 
tions of our human life in its lowliest 
form. His humble birth and life at Naza- 
reth, His homeless condition! as a public 
teacher. His rejection by the Jewish 
nation. His desertion by His disciples, 
even, on the night of His betrayal when 
there were none to stand by Him and 
comfort Him in the awful ordeal through 
which He was passing. In closing that 
study we indicated that there were yet 
other ingredients which entered into His 

cup of poverty. It is now our purpose to 

( 240 ) 



1balts=1bour StuOiea at tbe Crosa. 241 

refer to these and to the riches which 
have resulted to us therefrom. 

Up to the time of Christ's crucifixion, 
while he had been deserted by the world, 
and denied even the sympathy of His per- 
sonal followers, there had beamed upon 
Him in the darkness of all His earthly ex- 
periences the light of His Father's face. 
But while He hung upon the cross, suffer- 
ing, the just for the unjust, and when our 
iniquities were laid upon Him, in the aw- 
ful darkness of that hour He lost for the 
moment the vision of His Father's face, 
and cried out with a breaking heart, " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me?" We are not to suppose for a mo- 
ment that the Infinite Father was indiffer- 
ent to the agonies of His suffering Son, 
but only that His Father's face was not 
visible through the thick darkness that 
gathered about the cross and in the midst 
of the mysterious sufferings which that 
Son was undergoing. Under these dire 
circumstances Jesus lost, for the moment, 
the vision of His Father's face and ut- 
tered those pathetic words which have 



242 Ibalfsslbour StuDiee at tbe Gro66» 

melted so many hearts, " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me? " We 
may not enter now into a full understand- 
ing of all that is involved in those myste- 
rious words. But it is certain that they 
carried with them a sense of utter desola- 
tion and loneliness and of unspeakable 
anguish which no soul but that of Christ 
has ever tasted. 

Is there another step in the depths of 
poverty to be taken? Only one other. 
Taken down from the cross by friendly 
hands. His body is laid away in a bor- 
rowed sepulchre. A stone is rolled before 
it and a Roman guard placed around it. 
Here, in darkness and in death, with 
hands folded across a pulseless heart, lies 
the body of Him whom Tennyson calls, 
^' The strong and mighty Son of God." 
Because of the generations of men who 
are to go into the darkness of the tomb. 
He Himself went there that He might de- 
scend to the very lowest depths of our 
poverty and need. Here we seem to have 
reached the lowest possible depths of 
poverty. 



1balt^1bour StuDtes at tbe Cross. 243 

Dearly beloved, while your hearts are 
touched at the remembrance of all this 
bitter poverty endured by the Son of God, 
do not forget that it was for ''your 
sakes ' ' that He became poor. It was the 
nature of our poverty that required this 
sacrifice on the part of One who was rich 
in the glory of His perfections and in the 
splendor of all His heavenly associations. 
We were ignorant and needed a divine- 
human Teacher; sinful, and needed a sin- 
less One to redeem us from sin; mortal 
and needed One, who, by means of death, 
could overcome it, and bring life and im- 
mortality to light. These supreme needs 
made necessary the incarnation and death 
of Christ. It is through this poverty of 
Christ that we are rich to-day in the 
knowledge of God's love for us as indi- 
cated by the cross. ''God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten 
Son." We are rich in the knowledge of 
the worth of the human soul, indicated by 
the price paid for its redemption. No 
one ever suspected the value of a human 
being until God gave His Son — His only 



244 1balt:s1bout StuDie^ at tbe Ctoaa* 

begotten Son — to redeem him from sin 
and from the grave. To know that God 
loves us and to know the wealth and the 
sublime possibilities of the human soul as 
revealed in Christ, is wealth incompaia- 
ble. We are rich, too, in the knowledge 
of sins forgiven, and in all spiritual bless- 
ings in Christ Jesus. Who would ex- 
change the spiritual renewal which He 
has experienced through faith in Christ, 
and the consciousness of sonship for all 
the perishable wealth of earth? We are 
rich in our relationships and associations. 
We have come into new relations to God, 
who is our Father, to Jesus Christ, who is 
our Brother, to the Holy Spirit, who is 
our Comforter and our indwelling Guest^ 
and to angels, who are ministering spirits. 
Because of these relationships we can go 
to God in the full assurance of faith, and 
ask the most royal favors in the name of 
His Son, who has authorized us to use His 
name. We are heirs of God and joint- 
heirs with Christ. Who can describe the 
infinite possessions of Him who made all 
things and by whom all things exist ! The 



1balf*1bour StuDtee at tbe Cto66» 245 

Apostle Paul in making a record of the 
Christian's possessions, in one place ex- 
claims, ''All things are yours!" All 
things are of God and belong to Him, and 
we are His children — His spiritual chil- 
dren, made such through the poverty of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. There is not a 
beauty or a joy in heaven or on earth that 
does not belong to the Christian, because 
of His relation to God. 

We have, indeed, beloved, come into a 
glorious inheritance through the deep 
poverty of Christ. O, that these mute 
but significant emblems would remind us 
to-day not only of Christ's poverty in our 
behalf, but of the spiritual wealth also 
that has come to us through this poverty! 
And may we be duly impressed with the 
sense of our obligation to Him through 
whom all these unspeakable blessings and 
unsearchable riches have come to us. 
May His divine grace bring us all at last 
to share His glory and riches in the home 
which is unshadowed by sin or by death. 



XXXVII. 
A SYMPATHETIC HIGH PRIEST. 

Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through 
the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our 
confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that 
hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without 
sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the 
throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find 
grace to help us in time of need.—Heb, 4: 14-16. 

THE language of the Hebrew letter is 
drawn very largely from the Old 
Testament. Its method of reason- 
ing and its illustrations are determined 
very largely by the Jewish form of wor- 
ship. As the Jewish economy had a high 
priest whose duty it was to '' offer both 
gifts and sacrifices for sins," so the author 
of this epistle conceives Jesus Christ 
as being our high priest. It was import- 
ant under the old economy to have one 
for that office who could "bear gently 
with the ignorant and erring." It is easy 

to see that one who was destitute of the 

(246) 



1balt=1bour StuDiee at tbe Cro95. 247 

feeling of sympathy with his fellowmen 
would be unqualified to stand between 
them and God, and offer gifts and sacri- 
fices in their behalf. But in the Jewish 
institution the high priest was himself 
*' compassed with infirmity," and by rea- 
son of that fact was compelled, " as for 
the people, so also for himself, to offer 
for sins." We have a superior priesthood 
in the Christian dispensation, in that Je- 
sus Christ the Son of God, though Him- 
self sinless, has, nevertheless, been 
tempted in all points like as we are, and 
therefore can be touched with the feeling 
of our infirmities. Here is a combina- 
tion of qualities in our great high priest 
which no Jewish high priest ever pos- 
sessed, namely: His divine and sinless 
nature, and His perfect sympathy with 
our human weaknesses and infirmities. 

Another fact mentioned in connection 
with our " great high priest" is that He 
'' hath passed through the heavens." He 
has demonstrated His ability to be an ef- 
ficient high priest, in that, having shared 
with us the conditions of our human life, 



248 1balfs:1bout StuDtes at tbe (It066» 

so as to eliter into full sympathy with us, 
and having suffered the pangs of death 
in our behalf, He rose from the dead, and 
ascended on high, passing through the 
created heavens into heaven itself. For 
fear that this exaltation of the Son of 
God might lead some to fear that He was 
out of sympathy with us, the writer re- 
minds those Hebrew Christians that 
Jesus had been tempted as they had 
been, and was fully prepared to be touch- 
ed with the feeling of our infirmities. 
Surely a high priest who is the Son of 
God, who has conquered death and has 
ascended to His native heaven, and who, 
by the personal experiences of His life 
on earth, knows how to sympathize with 
us who are tempted, is an ideal priest, 
or, as the writer of this epistle terms 
Him, " a great High Priest." 

A great distinction between our High 
Priest and the high priest of the Jewish 
economy is, that while the latter offered 
the blood of animals as a sacrifice for 
the sins of the people, our High Priest 
offered Himself without spot or blemish 



1balf:s1bour StuDies at tbe Cro66. 249 

as a sin-offering for the world. It is in 
this fact that the Lord's Supper has its 
significance and value. The blood of 
animals could not cleanse the soul from 
the defilement of sin. There must needs 
be a better offering than that — such an 
offering as would not need to be repeated 
from time to time, but whose efficacy 
would endure through all generations. 
Jesus Christ made this offering for us 
by laying down His life for the sins of 
the world. This is the great central fact 
of the gospel. This is why this ordi- 
nance has its legitimate place in the pub- 
lic worship, and why the followers of 
Christ should gather about it in loving 
and tender remembrance of Him. 

The special lesson which this text 
teaches us, and which we would fain 
impress on the minds of all, is the sym- 
pathy of Jesus. It is easy for us in our 
troubles and sorrows to go to One who 
we are sure sympathizes with us. In such 
times we do not care to see any others. 
We are sure that many of us have failed 
to realize how deep and genuine is the 



350 1balf:s1bour StuDiea at tbe Qvose, 

sympathy of Jesus with us in all our trials 
and afflictions. When we have stumbled 
or gone out of the way we often fail to 
remember that Tvhile Christ would con- 
demn our faults, He is in profound sym- 
pathy with our weakness, and is ready 
to help us to return to the path of right- 
eousness, and to go forward again in the 
strength which He supplies. The text 
recites this fact of Christ's sympathy 
with us as a reason why we should draw 
near with boldness unto the throne of 
grace. There could be no lack of prayer- 
fulness on the part of Christians if they 
could realize not only the ability but 
the willingness of Christ to extend to us 
the needed aid. Our prayers, too, would 
lose their coldness and formality if we 
could feel that we were talking in the 
ears of One whose heart was beating in 
loving sympathy with all our sorrows. 
It would be a sweet thing to retire to 
our closet and commune with Him if we 
could only realize His oneness with us 
and His desire to have us tell Him all 
our troubles and our sins. How glad 



1balt=1bour Studies at tbe Cross. 251 

we should be to know that the throne of 
the universe is ''a throne of grace," and 
that we can approach it in all boldness, 
and seek, not only forgiveness for the 
past, but grace to sustain us in future 
times of need! 

Dearly beloved, as we gaze upon these 
emblems to-day, let us be reminded of 
the sympathetic character of our great 
High Priest, who is in heaven interceding 
for us, and let us be encouraged to seek 
companionship with Him in our daily 
lives, that His divine sympathy may not 
only heal the sorrows of our own hearts, 
but qualify us to be bearers of sympathy 
to others whose lives are burdened, and 
whose souls are hungry for love and 
sympathy. Christ gives His grace in 
largest measure to those who become 
helpers of others. 



XXXVIII. 
KNOWN BY HIS WOUNDS. 

And when he said this, he showed unto them his hands 
and his side. The disciples therefore were glad when they 
saw the Lord.— Jwo. 20:20. 

IT was on the evening of the day of 
Christ's resurrection — the first glad 
Easter day — that the Master appeared 
suddenly in the midst of the little group 
of his disciples who had gathered in a 
closed room for fear of the Jews. As 
yet his disciples knew not the Scripture 
that He must rise from the dead. Cer- 
tain rumors had reached them during the 
day from the women and others that 
Jesus had indeed risen from the dead 
and had appeared to them. But the 
news seemed too good to be true. 
*' They believed not for joy." Now that 
the Master stands before them He seeks 
to convince them of His identity, and in 
order to do so "He showed unto them 

( 352 ) 



1balts=1bour Studies at tbe Croaa. 253 

His hands and His side." These wounds, 
received in the act of crucifixion, would 
be the most convincing proof that He 
was the same Jesus who but three days 
before had been crucified for them. 

There is something very tender and 
pathetic in this scene, as it is brought 
before us by these simple words of the 
Evangelist. We seem to see the look of 
mingled terror, surprise and joy on the 
faces of the disciples. We can imagine the 
look of tender love that shone forth from 
the Savior's eyes as He presents to them 
His wounded palms and His riven side. 
It is as if He had said, ''You may be 
mistaken as to my form and feature and 
voice, but you cannot fail to recognize 
these wounds as those which I received 
for you, hanging upon the cross. You 
remember the nails that were driven 
through my hands and my feet and the 
spear that was thrust into my side. Be- 
hold, here are the self-same wounds ! 
Their dumb mouths do proclaim, more 
eloquently than words, that I am the 
same Jesus who has shared your poverty, 



254 lbalf:s1bour Stu&iea at tbe Grose* 

your sorrows, and your cares, and who 
was betrayed into the hands of sinners 
and was put to death as it is written in 
the Scriptures." 

We cannot conceive that there lingered 
any doubt in the minds of those present 
as to the reality of this appearance of 
Jesus. It was one of those ''infallible 
proof s " to which Luke refers as having 
been given to His disciples during the 
forty days of His sojourn on earth after 
His resurrection from the dead. Here 
was visible and tangible proof of His 
identity. And when the Master departed 
from their presence, as suddenly as He 
had come, none of them doubted that 
they had "seen the Lord." Along with 
this certitude of knowledge we can easily 
imagine what joy and hope sprang up in 
the hearts of these disciples. ''He is, 
indeed, risen," they would exclaim, one 
to another, " and all our fond hopes and 
anticipations are not lost, as we had 
feared." No doubt it took some time 
for the full meaning of that marvelous 
event to dawn upon their minds, but 



1balts:lbouc StuDie^ at tbe Gro96» 255 

enough was perceived at once to awaken 
their dead hopes to life again. Not for 
their sakes alone did the Master appear 
to these timid and doubting disciples, 
and exhibit His wounds in proof of His 
identity, but for all those who, in suc- 
ceeding ages, having not seen, yet believe 
on the testimony of these faithful wit- 
nesses, that the Christ who was crucified 
rose again from the dead. 

What lessons may we deduce from 
this incident of the first Easter day? Is 
not one of them this, that it is a most 
honorable thing to bear wounds in behalf 
of a righteous cause? The Master was 
not ashamed of the wounds He had re- 
ceived upon the cross for humanity. 
Not for any crime that he had committed, 
but for the sins of the world he became 
'^ obedient into death, even the death of 
the cross." He received His scars in the 
great conflict with the powers of dark- 
ness in which He won a victory for all 
ages, and for all the tribes of men. No 
wonder He was not ashamed to show 
His hands and His side, nor are we sur- 



256 1balt=1bour StuDie^ at tbe Qtoee, 

prised to see, in the Apocalyptic vision 
on the isle of Patmos, that when the 
glorified Christ is seen amid the shining 
ranks of heaven He appears as a Lamb, 
slain from the foundation of the world. 
It is, indeed, for this reason that the 
innumerable throng of the redeemed join 
in the ascription of praise, saying, "Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain to receive 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and bless- 
ing." 

The incident also naturally suggests 
the question, " What wounds have we 
received for the sake of Christ and for 
the redemption of the world?" Are we 
not "soldiers of the cross," and "follow- 
ers of the Lamb?" Have we no battles 
to fight? No enemies to overcome? 
Surely if we are faithful soldiers, follow- 
ing the example of our Master, we will 
bear the scars of honorable and heroic 
warfare in the cause of truth and right- 
eousness. As the old soldiers, when they 
gather about their camp-fires, in reunion, 
tell of their marches and battles, and 



1balt==1bour StuDiee at tbe Q1066. 25? 

point out the wounds they have received 
in their country's cause, so, also, will 
it not be a part of the joy of the redeem- 
ed in heaven to talk over the conflicts 
on earth, of battles fought and victories 
won, and to show the wounds that we 
received from the enemy while standing 
up honorably for the right? 

As we close this meditation before the 
cross, is there not a desire in all our 
hearts, yea, and a purpose, too, to be 
heroes and heroines in the great warfare 
with sin, and to bear an honorable part 
in subduing this world to Christ? If we 
have learned from this lesson that the 
path of duty is not always strewn with 
flowers, but that it is often a difficult and 
perilous one, and that ''we must fight if 
we would reign," we have gained a truer 
and worthier conception of Christian life 
than those who dream of being wafted 
to heaven ''on flowery beds of ease." 
Even if it were possible for us to gain 
heaven without enduring hardships and 
braving dangers for Christ's sake, it 
17 



258 1balt=1bour StuDies at tbe Cross* 

would forever detract from our joy in 
that land of bliss to feel that we had 
been saved by the agonies and blood of 
the sinless Son of God, and while pro- 
fessing to be His disciples and followers, 
had avoided dangers and shunned crosses, 
and bore no scars received in defense of 
His cause. 

Beloved, let us leave this hallowed spot, 
to-day, where, through the medium of 
symbols, we have been permitted to look 
upon the wounds of Christ received for 
us, with a deeper purpose in our hearts 
to avoid no hardship or cross or conflict 
that lies in the path of Christian duty, 
believing thaf if we suffer with Christ 
we shall also reign with Him." Let us 
now sing with the spirit : 

Sure I must fight if I would reign, 

Increase my courage. Lord; 
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, 

Supported by thy word. 



XXXIX. 
REASONABLE SERVICE. 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept- 
able unto God, which is your reasonable service.— -Bom. 
12:1. 

NO one has known better than Paul 
how to combine tender persuasion 
with strong argument. Having, through 
the previous chapters of this epistle, 
reasoned in a most profound manner 
concerning the great principle of justifi- 
cation by faith through the unmerited 
favor of God as manifested in Christ, he 
begins this twelfth chapter with an exhor- 
tation based on the conclusion which 
had been reached. Of what avail all this 
profound argument if it does not lead to 
a practical result? What is the benefit 
of logic unless it be translated into life? 
The end to which all Paul's theology 
tends is holier and worthier living. The 

"therefore" in the text quoted points 
(259) 



260 1balt==1bour StuOies at tbe Cro60^ 

back to the facts and truths enumerated 
by the Apostle in the preceding chapter 
— man's sinfulness; his helpless condition 
without God; the inability of the law 
to accomplish his salvation; the gracious 
gift of God in Christ, whose death in the 
sinner's behalf accomplished what the 
law could not do; man's freedom from 
condemnation in Christ; the riches of 
God's grace to the believer as evidenced 
by the gift of His Son, and God's pur- 
pose to conform His children into the 
image of Christ. In view of such mighty 
facts as these the Apostle might well 
exhort his brethren to present their 
bodies a living sacrifice unto God. 

All religions have had their sacrifices 
connected with them. The Christian re- 
ligion is no exception to this rule. True, 
we are not called upon^ under Christ, to 
offer the bodies of animals in sacrifice 
to God, as under the Jewish dispensation, 
but none the less is the principle of sacri- 
fice an essential part of Christianity. 
Indeed, it may be said that the sacrifice 
of self is the characteristic feature of 



ibalt^sl&our StuMes at tbc Cross. 261 

the Christian religion. This is the mean- 
ing of the cross. It stands for this funda- 
mental principle in the teaching and ex- 
ample of Christ. Christianity makes 
higher demands upon us than Judaism 
made upon the Jews, inasmuch as the 
gifts which it offers in return are vastly 
superior to those received by the Jews. 
The promises under the Law were chiefly 
of material blessings; but those under 
Christ are of spiritual blessings. Moses 
asked for a tenth of the income of the 
Jews; Christ asks for all we have and 
ourselves as well. The great sacrifice 
which He requires at our hands is that 
we '' present our bodies a living sacri- 
fice," that is, ourselves, with ail our 
powers and capacities. He is not satis- 
fied with one part of our nature. It will 
not answer to serve Him with the mind, 
but not with the heart; or with the mind 
and heart, and not with the body. He has 
redeemed us entire, as living, conscious, 
rational, embodied souls, and we are to 
offer ourselves entire in His service. 
It may appear to some at first thought 



262 1batt:*1bour StuDies at tbe Qvoee. 

that this is an unreasonable demand 
which Christianity makes upon us, but 
the Apostle declares that it is '^ our 
reasonable service." The reasonable- 
ness of such service follows from two 
considerations. First, it is reasonable 
in view of the fact that we have been 
redeemed at such a great cost — not with 
silver and gold, but with the precious 
blood of Christ. God so loved us that 
He gave His only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth on Him might not per- 
ish, but have everlasting life. Christ so 
loved us as to give Himself a ransom for 
us. Is it unreasonable, then, in view of 
the great sacrifices in our behalf, that 
we should offer our poor service in re- 
turn for these favors? All that we have 
and are and hope to be we owe to God. 
It is in the highest degree reasonable, 
therefore, that we should come to Him 
with all our ransomed powers and say, 
with Saul of Tarsus, when the light first 
broke in on his darkened mind: '' Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do?" 

In the second place this service is 



1bait:=ibour StuDie6 at tbe Cro66. 263 

reasonable because of its nature and 
purpose. God does not require irration- 
al or arbitrary service at our hands. He 
asks that we love Him with all our heart, 
mind and strength, and surely this is 
not a hard thing to do, in view of the 
great love He has shown to us. He asks 
us to put away all sinful practices, all 
habits or associations of life which in 
any way injure us in mind, body or 
spirit. Surely this is not unreasonable. 
As parents require their children to ab- 
stain from those things that are harmful 
to them, so our Heavenly Father, having 
lavished upon us His gracious gifts, only 
asks of us that we abstain from every- 
thing that would mar our nature or 
injure our growth or development. He 
requires also that we use our abilities 
in the service of humanity. He says 
if we love Him we are to show it by 
having care one for another. Christ 
teaches that whosoever ministers to the 
needy, ministers unto Him. We are 
never serving God more acceptably than 
when we are caring for the widow and 



264 1balt^1bout StuDiee at the aroes. 

orphan, visiting the sick, relieving the 
wants of the needy, comforting the hearts 
of the sad and disconsolate, and dis- 
pelling the darkness of despair with the 
light of Christian hope and joy. This is 
indeed a glorious service. It is worthy 
of the highest order of talent and of the 
greatest diligence. 

It is in the nature of such service to 
work out the grandest results in our own 
spiritual growth and perfection. God 
has ordained that we shall grow in grace 
and in the knowlege of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, not simply by feeding upon His 
Word, not simply by acts of worship, 
helpful as these are, but in unselfish 
activity and loving ministries to our 
fellow men. No doubt one reason why 
there are so many Christians who confess 
a lack of joy in their Christian lives, and 
who complain of a lack of spiritual 
growth, is that there is so much neglect 
of this ''reasonable service" which the 
Lord requires at our hands. More ser- 
vice would bring more growth, and more 
sacrifice more joy. 



1balts=1bour StuDies at tbe Cross. 265 

What, then, is the conclusion of the 
whole matter? Is it not that we are to 
no longer withhold from God any part 
of our nature or talents or time, but to 
offer them all to Him gladly as His due? 
That this sacrifice on our part is not only 
needful for humanity, but that it is at 
the same time the surest road to our own 
happiness? Do not these speaking em- 
blems of our Lord's body and blood tell 
us of One who, occupying a station of 
the highest dignity and rank and glory, 
emptied Himself, and, coming to the earth 
in ''fashion as a man," offered Himself 
a sacrifice on the altar of humanity? 
There was no part of His great nature 
that He withheld from the service of 
men. He offered Himself as a "living 
sacrifice," and counted it even a joy to 
pour out His blood for the redemption 
of a lost race. ''Wherefore God also 
hath highly exalted Him, and hath given 
Him a name which is above every name." 
In a word, what this passage calls for is a 
real consecration of ourselves to God's 
service. There is danger that we cheap- 



266 1balf=slbour StuDiee at tbe Grose* 

en that word, and make it mean but 
little. If it does not mean that we are 
to put away from our hearts and lives 
whatever we know to be contrary to 
God's will, and to put ourselves under 
orders to the Lord Jesus to do whatever 
He would like to have us do, and be 
whatever He would like to have us be, 
then we have not the right word and 
must seek another. Nothing less than 
this will fill the measure of our Christian 
obligation. 

Wherefore, we beseech you, brethren, 
by the tender mercies of our God, by 
the heroic example of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and by the crying need of a suffer- 
ing race, to offer yourselves, unreserved- 
ly, as living sacrifices holy, and acceptable 
to God, as your reasonable service. You 
will find in such service, here, the sweetest 
joy that earth may know, and hereafter 
the realization of the fullness of life 
eternal. 



XL. 

TRIUMPHANT THROUGH THE LAMB. 

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; 
neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat: for 
the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their 
shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of 
life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.— 
Bev. 7:16, 17. 

IT may be doubted if literature presents 
a more charming picture of peace, 
contentment and fullness of joy than is 
here presented. The happy condition 
thus vividly sketched is predicated of 
those of whom mention is made in the 
preceding verses. St. John had been 
asked by one of the elders, "These 
which are arrayed in the white robes, 
who are they, and whence came they?" 
and he had answered his own question by 
saying, " These are they which come out 
of the great tribulation, and they washed 
their robes, and made them white in the 

blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they 
(267) 



268 1balts=1bour Studies at tbe Cross. 

before the throne of God ; and they serve 
Him day and night in His temple : and 
He that sitteth on the throne shall spread 
His tabernacle over them." 

We quote this beautiful and most com- 
forting description of the future condition 
of the righteous to show that the efficacy 
of Christ's redeeming blood does not ex- 
haust its virtue in the life that now is, 
but that it reaches forward in the eternity 
to come. The apocalyptic seer had been 
permitted to look through an open door 
into heaven, and describe things which 
he saw as ''things which are to come 
hereafter." The Lamb in the midst of 
the throne shows that the cross has not 
lost its significance in heaven, and that 
Christ is honored there by the adoring 
throng, because of the sacrifice of Him- 
self here for the sin of the world. 
Another of the beautiful visions which 
greeted his eyes was the white-robed 
throng before the throne of God. These 
white robes symbolized their purity and 
righteousness, which were unsullied by the 
taint of sin. Not only, then, does the 



1balt:=1bour Stu^iee at tbe Croes. 269 

scene teach us the continuous power of 
the sacrificial death of Christ, but it re- 
veals to us the consummation of that 
which we see here only in its beginning. 
The best of God's saints here upon earth 
have their faults and imperfections. We 
who gather here, to-day, to observe this 
memorial feast in honor of our crucified 
and risen Lord are painfully conscious 
of our imperfections and our need of 
the cleansing power of the blood of 
Christ. But lest we might be discourag- 
ed at the slow progress which we seem to 
be making toward that perfection for 
which we sigh, we are graciously vouch- 
safed this vision, through the seer of 
Patmos, of the perfected saints in glory. 
There we see the fulfillment of Paul's 
statement in the Ephesian letter, that 
Christ " loved the church, and gave Him- 
self up for it, that He might sanctify it, 
having cleansed it by the washing of 
water with the word, that He might pre- 
sent the church to Himself a glorious 
churchy not having spot or wrinkle or any 
sack thing ; but that it should be holy and 



270 lbalt:=1bour StuDiee at tbe Grose* 

without blemish.^' May it not have been 
a scene like this, witnessed by Paul when 
caught up into the third heaven, that en- 
abled him to say to the Philippians with 
more assurance, " Being confident of this 
very thing, that He which began a good 
work in you will perfect it until the 
day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1: 6). 

If there be any here to-day who feel 
that their burdens are unusually heavy, 
that their crosses are exceedingly diflScult 
to bear, let them find encouragement in 
this phrase, '•' Therefore are they before 
the throne of God." The tribulation 
through which they had come, together 
with the washing of their robes, are the 
conditions through which they came into 
the blessedness of their present estate. 
Some of these, no doubt, had suffered 
martyrdom, and others had endured 
''great trials of affliction," through all 
of which they had maintained their loyal- 
ty to Christ. We are justified in regard- 
ing our present afflictions and trials as 
a part of the disciplinary training by 
which we are to be made fit to associate 



1balt:^1bour StuMee at tbe Gross. 271 

with those whom John saw clothed in 
spotless raiment. 

Let us notice again, and more particu- 
larly, the happy condition of these glori- 
fied saints. They suffer no more the 
pangs of hunger nor thirst, neither shall 
they be exposed to the fierce rays of the 
sun. In a word, all those conditions 
which embitter our present life in the 
flesh, and those wants which annoy so 
large a part of our race, shall be for- 
ever absent. There is complete provision 
for every possible need which these glori- 
fied beings may have. The reason assign- 
ed for the existence of this glorious con- 
dition of things, is one that may well 
attract our attention and touch our in- 
most hearts, "For the Lamb which is 
in the midst of the throne shall be their 
shepherd, and shall guide them unto 
fountains of waters of life." Could any 
assurance be more comforting than this, 
that the same dear Savior whose death 
in our behalf we commemorate, and 
whose whole earthly ministry is described 
as '' going about doing good," is to min- 



272 1balt=s1bour StuMe6 at tbe Qtoee. 

ister to His disciples in the ages to come 
and guide them unto fountains of living 
water? In a former study we showed 
how Jesus was here the Shepherd of His 
people, feeding, guiding and protecting 
them. This lesson gives us a glimpse of 
the scenes beyond the veil of flesh, and 
we see our divine Lord still the true and 
tender Shepherd. 

Please notice the term by which our 
Lord is here designated. It is '^^ the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne" 
that is to be their Shepherd and ours. 
That is, the same Christ who made the 
sacrifice for us, laying down his life in 
our behalf, is to shepherd His flock on 
the everlasting hills. Surely there is no 
other one whom we would so gladly 
follow, as He leads us up the mountains 
of God and beside the pearly stream of 
the water of life, as the One who, for our* 
sakes, being rich, became poor, and 
''humbled Himself unto death, even the 
death of the cross." The significant 
thought conveyed by the use of this term 
''Lamb," is, that it was through the 



1balt=1bout Studies at tbe Croes. 273 

sacrifice which He made for us as the 

Lamb of God that He has risen to the 

lofty place in which the vision places 

Him, ''in the midst of the throne." 

This harmonizes with Paul's statement 

where, speaking of Christ's humiliation 

and suffering in our behalf, he says: 

'• Wherefore God hath highly exalted 

Him, and hath given Him a name that is 

above every name." The lesson which 

we are to draw from this fact is obvious 

enough. If self-sacrifice was the law of 

promotion or exaltation in the case of 

Jesus Christ, is it less so with us, who 

are the disciples of Christ? Surely the 

servant is not above his Master. If we, 

then, are to be '' highly exalted " in the 

world beyond, we must be willing to walk 

in the lowly footsteps of the Master, 

living not for self, but for others. This 

is no doubt, the law of God in all worlds 

and along all created intelligences. 

Let us not omit here the finishing 

touch in this graphic picture: ''And God 

shall wipe away every tear from their 

eyes." Alas, how many eyes here on 
18 



274 lbalts=1bout StuOtee at tbe Cro06» 

earth are . weary with weeping ! There 
are tears for our own sins, and tears for 
the sins of those whom we love. There 
are tears for our own sorrow, and tears 
for the sorrows of others. We are so 
knit together by the ties of a common 
humanity that we cannot be indifferent 
to the sin and suffering and woe that 
are all about us. But how different it is 
with that blessed company which we see, 
through this open door into heaven! 
How our hearts long for that sorrowless 
and tearlesss land! How sweet it will 
be, my brethren, to be under the direct 
tuition of our great Teacher, and to fol- 
low the gentle leading of the Good Shep- 
herd as His hand shall guide us along the 
crystal current of the Eiver of Life! 
May this vision of '* things to come" 
quicken our zeal and kindle our enthusi- 
asm as we press along our pilgrim way ! 
And may it be ours, when the conflicts 
and tribulations of this earth-life are 
past, and we gather no more here 
around this table of the Lord, to 
join the company of the redeemed in 



1balt:=1bour StuOice at tbe Cro66. 275 

heaven and compose a part of that un- 
numbered throng that follow the Lamb 
whithersoever He goeth, and share in all 
their glory aud blessedness forever ! 



With this glimpse through the *' gates 
ajar" into the blissful future awaiting 
all the followers of the Lamb, we close 
these Studies at the Cross, with the sin- 
cere prayer that all who have followed 
us in these meditations may be permitted 
to sit down together at the great Mar- 
riage Supper of the Lamb, and unite in 
the triumphant celebrations of His name,* 
who '* washed us from our sins in His 
own blood." To Him be glory both now 
and forever. Amen ! 



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